Virat Kohli has planned to play county cricket before the all important England tour in a bid to acclimatise himself to the English conditions. Kohli doesn’t have a good record in England and wants to play the swinging ball before being thrown into the Test arena against the mighty English.
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He failed miserably with the bat when he toured to England in 2014. Reports suggested that the Indian skipper will play for Surrey. According to reports, he will make himself available for Surrey’s three four-day matches against Hampshire, Somerset and Yorkshire between June 9 and June 28.
However, BCCI wants Kohli to lead the Indian team in the first ever test against Afghanistan starting June 14. BCCI believes that absence of the skipper would give a bad message and disrespect to the opponents. The Broadcasters too would be dissatisfied and angry with Kohli’s decision.
“If a decision has been taken to allow the India captain to miss an international game and play County cricket at that point of time, it would set a very bad precedent. It would give a very bad message to the visiting Afghanistan team; that maybe the opponents aren’t worthy for us. It would be disrespectful to the Afghanistan team and also, it would be unfair on the broadcaster,” a BCCI official said as quoted by The Indian Express
“(Even if) he is playing in England at that time, he can come back for one Test and then fly back. And if he is so keen to play County cricket, has he sought permission to miss his IPL games?” he added.
While the Committee of Administrators (CoA) want Virat to spend some time in England before India’s tour opener at Manchester on July 3.
“Virat Kohli will be playing for the top English County side Surrey in the month of June. The BCCI has allowed him to fully focus on the England Test series along with Cheteshwar Pujara (Yorkshire), Ravichandran Ashwin (Warwickshire) and Ishant Sharma (Sussex). Virat will miss the Test match against Afghanistan in Bangalore from June 14-18,” Committee of Administrators (CoA) chief Vinod Rai had told PTI.
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