Live Score
Cricket Teams
Cricket Players
Surrey ‘can’t wait’ to have Virat Kohli in their ranks
Virat Kohli, the Indian cricket team captain will spend the month of June playing for English County team Surrey to prepare for the Test series there
Surrey head coach Michael di Venuto says the English County club cannot wait for India skipper Virat Kohli to join their ranks next month.
The Indian cricket captain will be missing the historic Test against Afghanistan — the maiden Test for the war-torn country — at M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore starting June 14.
Kohli has been allowed by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to play in England to prepare for swinging conditions that had led to him faring poorly on India’s previous Test tour in 2014.
Kohli averaged just 13.40 in the five-Test series against England in 2014. Now, as captain of the Indian cricket team and among the world’s best batsmen, he is determined to make amends on India’s tour starting July.
The Indian cricket team will be in England from July to September 2018, playing three ODIs and T20Is each, followed by a five-Test series for the Pataudi Trophy.
Kohli will be available for both One-Day Cup as well as the County Championship for Surrey.
“We can’t wait. When it was announced, the guys, especially the youngsters, were so excited that they were going to be sharing a dressing room and playing cricket with him as we are as staff,” Surrey’s official website quoted Di Venuto as saying.
“I watched him a lot of times when I was in the Australian dressing room and he was scoring a lot of runs, but I’ll definitely enjoy it a lot more when he’s batting and scoring runs for us,” Di Venuto said.
Di Venuto, who played a key role in the rise of Steve Smith as a Test batsman, will be Kohli’s coach at Surrey. Di Venuto played nine ODIs for Australia in 1997.
