South Africa keen to go after 'big dog' Virat Kohli in fourth ODI

Virat Kohli celebrating his 34th ODI hundred (Photo: BCCI)

Johannesburg: Dismissing "big dog" Virat Kohli cheaply could be key to an embattled South Africa's chances of halting India's fine run in the ongoing ODI series, feels allrounder Chris Morris.

Leading 3-0, India are on the threshold of securing their first-ever ODI series win in South Africa, with the fourth match scheduled for Saturday.

"You always want to get the main dog out in a team. Kohli's the big dog and the guy is scoring runs for them at the moment," Morris said at the pre-match press conference.

He felt that getting Kohli cheaply would have been key, given the remaining Indian batsmen haven't done much.

"34 ODI hundreds speaks for itself. He's got a hundred in every single country he's played in. The guy's in serious form at the moment, and he's in form anywhere he plays in the world.

"He's a good player but we know if we bowl well enough to him, we could get him out. We know he's the main guy in the team, and if we can get him out, we can put India under pressure," he said.

Morris said that South Africa were not too far off from victory in the first three matches despite the scoreline saying something else.

"In saying that, we were millimetres away in Cape Town, we were millimetres away in Durban. No edge there (in Cape Town) and it's a different game, Faf takes a blinder (in Durban) and it's a different game.

"It's a game of centimetres and millimetres at the moment. But he (Kohli) is in serious form and we're just going to have to do as well as we can to combat that."

The pitch at the Wanderers is expected to be a typical South African batting track with lots of pace and bounce.

"The pitch usually speeds up at night and obviously their spinners outdid us on that pitch. Simple as that, we've just got to be better. Like I said, no hiding behind it, no excuses - we've just got to play better than India," Morris said.