Former Australia all-rounder Shane Lee has questioned the timing of Ricky Ponting’s comments on Virat Kohli’s batting form just ahead of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, starting next week in Perth.

“That is a bad move, Ricky,” Lee said on Fox Cricket’s podcast The Follow On.

“What are you doing? You are going to fire that guy up. He is a world class player and he will fire up out here.”

Ricky Ponting, in the ICC review, has questioned Kohli’s form, who has only managed two centuries and 11 half-centuries in his last 60 Test innings and in the six Tests in 2024, has averaged only 22.72.

“I saw a stat the other day about Virat—it said he’s only scored two Test hundreds in the last five years. That didn’t seem right to me, but if that is accurate, then that’s, I mean, that’s a concern. There probably wouldn’t be anyone else still playing international cricket as a top-order batsman who’s only scored two Test match hundreds in five years,” Ponting had said.

However, Lee feels it will be a spicy Test series between the two countries.

“I think it is going to be a fantastic series. I think there is going to be a bit of spice in this series, definitely with the ball-tampering issues in and around the India A team, and particularly now that Ricky Ponting has now come out and given it to Kohli,” he said.

Lee expects India to bounce back in Australia following their Test series loss at home against New Zealand and has predicted a 2-2 draw result.

“We have a world-class attack with (Mitchell) Starc, (Pat) Cummins, (Josh) Hazlewood, and (Nathan) Lyon. I mean, ‘c’mon’. It doesn’t get much better than that,” he said.

“(But) our batting is fragile. It is probably one of the weaker batting line-ups I have seen for an Australian Test side in a long while. (Nathan) McSweeney is going to come in and he is under pressure, because he has never batted as an opener, and I think that is a specialist position.

“(Usman) Khawaja is the standout for me (for Australia) at the moment. He is going to play really well. (Marnus) Labuschagne, for me, has been out of form for a while, as has Steve Smith.

“It is going to come down to our batting and how well we can handle pressure, particularly with (Jasprit) Bumrah and their pace attack steaming in when the wicket is doing a bit.”