Former Australia all-rounder Shane Watson has cautioned the Pat Cummins-led outfit against being confrontational with Virat Kohli when both sides face off in the five-Test series for the Border-Gavaskar trophy, starting at the Optus Stadium in Perth on Friday.

Amid all the talk around Kohli’s recent batting slump and his eagerness to bounce back in the intensely competitive series, Watson felt that Kohli might pose less of a threat if left undisturbed by the Australians.

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“The one thing that I know of Virat is… because the fire burns so brightly and deep inside him, the intensity he brings to every ball that he is engaged in a game has been superhuman,” Watson was quoted as saying on the Willow Talk podcast.

“But, there have been in recent times where moments in this career that fire has started to go out because it is just so hard to maintain that intensity in every moment he is involved in a game. And, that is where Australia have to leave him alone and hope he doesn’t bring the intensity — nine out of 10 intensity — to every ball.”

Kohli has scored 1,352 runs, with the help of six centuries and four fifties, and a top score of 169, at an average of 54.08 from 13 Tests in Australia since 2011.

While this would be his fifth tour Down Under in the longest format, Kohli’s best outing came during the 2014-15 series when he aggregated 692 runs in four Tests at an average of 86.50, including four hundreds and a half-century.

“We have seen that when he has had success in Australia, he is up and above for everything in the middle. Every ball he is up for every single moment. You can see the fierce intensity that he brings, and if he gets that, then it shuts everything else out. That is when he is at his absolute best,” Watson said.

“If there is stuff happening around and that intensity is not there, that is when you will see the not-so-best version of Virat. So from an Australian perspective, let’s hope we get to see that version of him,” he added.

As both teams gear up preparations for the five-Test rubber, the first one since 1991-92, the focus has been on Virat Kohli, with a group of Australian newspapers releasing a special issue featuring the star batter on the cover.

Kohli appeared focused during training sessions at the iconic WACA in Perth last week before carrying the same energy into India’s first training session at the Optus Stadium on Tuesday. In the absence of two of India’s first-choice top three — Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill, the onus will be on Kohli to shoulder India’s batting alongside the rest of the order in Perth.