MUMBAI: Ahead of his long-awaited Ranji Trophy comeback after more than 12 years, star bat Virat Kohli, currently struggling for form, resumed his training when he had a special nets session under the guidance of former India allrounder Sanjay Bangar at a ground in Bandra in the city.
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Bangar was India’s batting coach during Virat Kohli’s peak as an international cricketer between 2014 to 2019. During that time, Kohli often credited Bangar for his successful run.
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Whenever he is in Mumbai, the former India captain often trains under Bangar, with whom he clearly shares a comfortable equation.
Kohli scored a bulk of his 80 international hundreds from 2014-19, when Bangar was a part of the Team India support staff.
Bangar was later replaced by Vikram Rathour as India batting coach. Later, Bangar was the head coach of Kohli’s IPL team Royal Challengers Bengaluru for three years.
In a video of the training session, which was widely circulating on social media on Sunday, Bangar was seen giving throwdowns from around 16 yards to Kohli, who seemed to be working more on his back foot play, rocking back to play the balls.
A portable cement slab was placed at the back of length to feed the batter.
Following the BCCI‘s unofficial diktat to all centrally contracted cricketers to be available for domestic cricket, Kohli, who missed the last Ranji tie due to a neck sprain, will play in Delhi’s last league game against Railways at the Kotla in Delhi from January 30.
Except KL Rahul, almost all of Kohli’s India teammates – skipper Rohit Sharma, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubman Gill, Rishabh Pant and Ravindra Jadeja playing in the just- concluded round of Ranji Trophy.
Among the stars, only Jadeja and Gill, who scored a hundred, enjoyed fruitful outings.
Kohli managed to scored just 190 runs in five Tests in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, including a century in the first Test at Perth. During the five home Tests this season against Bangladesh and New Zealand, his highest score was 47. Against New Zealand, all he managed to score was 93 runs in three Tests at an average of 15.50.
The 36-year-old has been afflicted by serious technical issues against deliveries pitched on and outside the off-stump area and has been out in a similar way repeatedly, edging the ball behind time and again.