Virat Kohli-s Indian team still has a long way to go before it is spoken of in the same breath as Australia of 2000s, feels former India pacer Ashish Nehra. Under Kohli-s leadership, India earned its maiden series victory in Australia in 2018-19, achieving the feat after trying for seven decades. However, it can-t be discounted that absence of Steve Smith and David Warner due to ball tampering ban turned out to be an important factor.

"This Indian team has to still cover a lot of distance in order to match up with that Australia team led by Steve Waugh and then Ricky Ponting," Nehra said during an interaction with ex-player Aakash Chopra on his show -Aakash Vani-. "You are talking about an Australian team which won three consecutive World Cups and before that reached the final in 1996, won 18-19 Test matches in home and away conditions," Nehra added. He also did not appreciate the fact that every now and then team combination is being tinkered with. "It-s not like this Indian team can not reach there but I believe the core group is very important. A person gets confused after watching many dishes on the table and so it-s important to have fewer but better dishes," Nehra made his displeasure clear. He the went on to cite how team management had handled Rishabh Pant-s career so far.