He is a great player and an equally great leader: Australian coach Justin Langer on Virat Kohli

Virat Kohli might only be playing just the one Test against Australia before leaving for India, but the focus is still firmly on the Indian skipper ahead of the Border-Gavaskar series. Australian coach Justin Langer says that the Aussies are confident of their plans against the Indian captain ahead of the first Test against the Aussies.

"He is a great player and an equally great leader,” said Langer ahead of the first Test match. “I have got so much respect for him but we are going to be really well planned for him because we know how important he is for India as a leader and as a batsman. So, we will have our plans in place.”

"The next trick is to execute them, hopefully, keep him out of the game with his runs. At the end of the day, that's where he is going to have the biggest impact. We've seen a lot of him now, and he has seen a lot of us too," Langer said during a virtual media interaction.

Langer, however, is firmly focused on the skills needed to get Virat Kohli out, and not sledging to unsettle the master batsman. "What we talk about is how to get Virat out. He is such a great player, we don't talk about whether we taunt him or not. That's rubbish... We play on the skill, not on emotions, at least we try to. There is obviously emotion in the game, no doubt about that, we are going to control our emotions,” Longer concluded.

[PTI inputs]