India captain Virat Kohli heaped praise on India's fast-bowling mainstays in limited-overs cricket - Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Jasprit Bumrah - talking up their ability to be out-think batsmen on most occasions and bring India so much success in recent times.

Since January 2017, Bumrah has picked 61 wickets in 36 ODIs while Bhuvneshwar, in comparison, has only 38 in as many fixtures because of a wicketless lull that he endured in South Africa and an injury that allowed him to play just one ODI in England (in Leeds). In T20Is, Bumrah has 18 in 16 matches and Bhuvneshwar has accounted for 15 in 15 matches.

But beyond all the numbers, it is the pair's ability to start well and be two of the most effective death bowlers that accentuates their value to the Indian side.

"Both of them have been outstanding [and] the reason why both of them have been good is because they're thinking bowlers - they understand the situation and get a gut feel of what a batsman is looking to do before they're going to bowl. And the ability to kind of predict what's going to happen on each ball is what keeps them a step ahead of the batsmen most of the time.

"Sometimes they will get dominated like everyone does, but I think 85-90% of the times they're spot on and that's because they're always looking at how the game is going, how the batsmen are batting, what areas they're hitting, and what are the balls they need to execute in difficult situations. So I think that's been their strength."

Kohli also echoed Ravi Shastri's opinion on not wanting to chop and change anymore in the 50-over squad leading up to the World Cup, and reckoned it'd be tough - now more than ever - to give opportunities to other fast bowlers in place of either of Bhuvneshwar and Bumrah, or both.

"Any captain would love to have both of them in their squad. I've obviously been very lucky to have both of them bowling so well for the team and giving us those breakthroughs as well and in difficult situation at the death coming and executing what we want them to.

"And from now on obviously it is going to be much more difficult for others to step in unless there's any sort of workload issue because till the World Cup we want our XI that's going to play together to play as long as possible and together in as many number of games because there's not many left."

On a day when Cricket Australia shot down any remote possibility of Steven Smith and David Warner returning ahead of schedule from their bans and turning out against India, Kohli opted to sidestep questions on whether they should've been allowed to do so. He did however, opine that even without two of their best batsmen in the side, Australia's limited-overs team will have a lot of quality.

"There's no denying the quality they have in their side. They still have world class cricketers. Obviously missing out on two of the best batsmen is not the ideal thing for any team but even then they have guys, especially in limited-overs game, who can do damage at any given point of time and you can never underestimate any side and we've come here to compete against Australia and definitely we'll not take anything for granted regardless of any kind of situation that's present. Our focus as a team is to play good quality cricket and win games of cricket," Kohli said.

The full tour kick-starts on Wednesday (November 21), with the first of the three-match T20I series in Brisbane.