Former Australia captain and one of the greatest batsmen of all time, Ricky Ponting, has said that he is worried about Virat Kohli’s form ahead of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. Speaking on the latest episode of ICC Review, Ponting said that any other batsman who scored 2 hundreds in the last 5 years would be dropped from the national team.

Ponting’s comments come after India’s historic whitewash against New Zealand, where Virat Kohli performed horribly and scored just 93 runs. This was one of Kohli’s worst Test series in recent times where he failed to make any impact on the game. Kohli’s problems with spin were highlighted against the likes of Mitchell Santner and Ajaz Patel, where the batsman came out in an unusual manner.

“The other day I saw a statistic about Virat, it said he only got two (three) hundreds of tests in the last five years. That didn’t seem right to me, but if it’s right, then it’s a concern,” Ponting said.

Following Virat Kohli’s trail, Rohit Sharma’s decline in numbers

“There probably wouldn’t be anyone else playing international cricket like a top-order batsman who only scored two Test match hundreds in five years.”

However, despite Kohli’s recent slump, Ponting has backed the batsman to make a strong comeback on the tour of Australia. India are under pressure ahead of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy as they cannot afford to lose a single Test match in the series if they want to reach the final of the World Test Championship. India has to win at least 4 matches to ensure direct qualification to the final of the tournament.

“I’ve said it before about Virat: the greats of the game are never questioned,” Ponting said. “There is no doubt, he is a great player.

“He loves playing against Australia. In fact, I know he loves playing against Australia. And like I said, their track record (in Australia) is very good. If there is a time to change things, it would be this series.

“So I wouldn’t be surprised to see Virat make runs in the first game.”

Tune in