Former Australian middle-order stalwart Michael Hussey has urged Steven Smith's men to not try and rile India captain Virat Kohli in the four-Test series which starts this month. (Watch what Kohli and Dhoni did to Chahal after his 6 for 25)

Smith suggested in an interview in December that his team would want Kohli a little angry. The young Aussie captain felt distracting his India counterpart would be advantageous for him. (Kohli's witty response to journalist: Sri, if I do everything, what will the others do?)

However, Hussey, who has been involved in some fabled India-Australia battles, said firing Kohli up would be a wrong idea. Mr Cricket, as Hussey is fondly known for his astute cricket brain, may have hit the nail on the head again.

Back in 2014-15, Australia had tried to sledge Kohli which is in line with their tactics of unsettling the best batsman in the opposing team. But that backfired on the hosts as Kohli went on to slam his then Test best of 169 in the Boxing Day match.

Kohli seems to enjoy these battles and not many teams around the world want to rub the run-machine the wrong way. England, who were recently handed a 4-0 drubbing in the Test series late last year, stayed quiet. Apart from one episode that involved a spat with Ben Stokes and another press conference in poor taste from James Anderson, the series was largely played in good spirits.

Hussey reckons Australia would do well to keep mum against Kohli.

"I wouldn't try and fire him up," Hussey told cricket.com.au recently. "I think he thrives on that and he's a real competitor. He loves being in the fight and loves the contest out in the middle."

Hussey said Australia should in fact focus on executing their plans well instead of getting carried away with mindgames. ""There's no need to get involved in that sort of verbal barrage because I think that fires him up even more."

Kohli, who was the centre of Australia's verbal assault two years back, amassed 639 runs including four hundreds from four Tests that series. The 28-year-old, who has since tempered down significantly, clobbered 655 runs against England including a career-best 235 in Mumbai.