With three days to go for the much-awaited return of Indian cricket, Virat Kohli and Jasprit Bumrah were involved in a fascinating duel as the players got down to business in Chennai on Monday. India take on Bangladesh in the first Test of a two-match series starting Thursday and with the sands of time slipping through the hourglass, Kohli and Bumrah, who’ve had very little game-time since the T20 World Cup final, are giving it their all to get rid of ring rust. And what better way to do so by going up against each other – India’s best bowler testing India’s best batter in a showdown for the ages.
Only at India nets and in the IPL do Kohli and Bumrah face off. Hence, when the opportunity provided, it made for the riveting watch. According to a report in The Sportstar, Bumrah tested Kohli with his wide range of variety. He used his skills to get the ball to move both in to and away from the Indian batting stalwart. Most of them were safely negotiated, but Kohli, like many batting greats, refrained from attacking Bumrah. One ball however, foxed Kohli as Bumrah got it to jab back into him. Kohli missed the flick and as the ball rapped him on the pads, up went Bumrah in celebration of an imaginary wicket. As he walked towards his run-up, Bumrah signalled for the DRS. In reply, Kohli gestured that the ball was missing leg.
Kohli and Yashasvi Jaiswal were India’s first set of batters to grind it out under the muggy conditions of Chennai. Barring Bumrah, Kohli also looked in a tad discomfort against Gurnoor Brar. The six-feet tall talent from Punjab has been deployed as a net bowler to help prepare India for Bangladesh pacer Nahid Rana, who recently rattled Pakistan with 4/44 in the second Test at Rawalpindi. Brar’s bouncers had Kohli hopping initially, but such is the class of Virat that he settled into reading him better and began to play authoritative and intent-filled shots against him.
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Kohli relentless against spinners
Kohli, however, showed no cautious approach towards the spin duo of Ravindra Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin. He batted in the nets for approximately 15 minutes and left the scene after stepping out to them twice and dispatching them with some lusty blows. This was India’s second round of practice after turning up on September 14. The players took a break on Sunday but all 16 of them turned with 48 hours to go for the series opener.
Meanwhile, Jaiswal blew hot and cold. He looked all over the place facing Bumrah and Akash Deep round the wicket, but seemed to have found his groove against Ashwin and Jadeja as he brought up the sweep shots. Jaiswal has played very little white-ball cricket since his record-breaking series of 700-plus runs against England a few months ago, only featuring in the first round Duleep Trophy contest for India B, where he scored 30 and 9.
Rohit Sharma, Shubman Gill and the recently-joined Sarfaraz Khan had a go too, with the India captaining concentrating hard against facing the spinners. Shakib-Al-Hasan and Mehidy Hasan promise to pose decent spin threat to India, and with the home team’s batting having a history of showing vulnerablity against quality spin – as against England and Australia – Rohit wants to put those concerns to rest.
