Australian bowling great Glenn McGrath has urged Australia to use attacking mind games against an “emotional” and out-of-form Virat Kohli.

McGrath, well known for throwing early jabs at touring teams through the media in his playing days, said the pressure on the Indian megastar was so great a poor start to the upcoming cutthroat Border-Gavaskar Trophy series could see him crumble.

In the recent record-breaking whitewash humiliation at the hands of New Zealand on their home turf, Kohli averaged just 15, and has only registered a half century once in the past 10 Test digs.

However, the middle-order run machine averages over 50 on Australian shores and enters the series with a dangerous point to prove.

McGrath suggested the Aussies needed to get on top of Kohli early and could do it through his heart-on-sleeve emotions.

“If they go hard at him, if he gets in the fight with emotions, there’s a bit of chat out there, who knows he might sort of lift. But I think he’s probably under pressure a little bit, and if he has a couple of low scores to start with, he could really feel it. I think he’s quite an emotional player. When he’s up, he’s up, and when he’s down, he sort of struggles a little bit,” he told the Herald Sun.

“You look at that series against New Zealand recently, where the three Tests he only made 90 odd runs, his top score was 70. So it was a pretty lean series. He’d be under pressure a little bit. He’s probably feeling it as well.

“So if Australia can start well and bowl well to knock him over the first Test match, that could sort of set up the whole series for us. So I think that’s the first Test is pretty important.”