‘Countdown for Boxing Day Test underway’ – Virat Kohli shares pictures from training session ahead of South Africa Tests

Team India’s preparations look on song ahead of the three-match Test series against South Africa. The action gets underway on December 26 with the Boxing Day Test at the SuperSport Park in Centurion. Notably, the rainbow nation is the only country where India haven’t recorded a Test series win yet. Hence, it’s a great chance for Virat Kohli’s men to script history against the Proteas team.

For the unversed, the national team has landed in the African country and their training is already underway. Several videos and pictures are doing rounds of social media where the players can be seen sweating it out in nets. Indian skipper Virat Kohli also took to Twitter on Thursday (December 23) and shared some pictures from his recent practice session. The caption referred that the 33-year-old is raring to take the field in the Boxing Day clash.

Eyes will be on Virat Kohli in South Africa Tests

Meanwhile, Kohli hasn’t been at his prime since a while. In fact, his last century in international cricket was recorded more than two years ago. Hence, many eyes would be on his performance against the Proteas team. The captaincy controversy in Indian cricket is another factor which makes the veteran batter a player to watch out for in the series.

For the unversed, the Board of Control for Cricket in India took the cricket world by storm by sacking Virat Kohli as ODI captain earlier this month, giving the charge to Rohit Sharma, who also took over as T20I captain post the T20 World Cup last month. As if this announcement wasn’t sensational enough, BCCI president Sourav Ganguly stated he requested Kohli to not quit T20I captaincy.

As the 33-year-old didn’t agree to do so, Rohit got the charge in ODIs as well as the selectors wanted a common captain in white-ball cricket. “I personally requested him (Kohli) not to give up the T20I captaincy. Obviously, he felt the workload. Which is fine, he has been a great cricketer, he has been very intense with his cricket,” Ganguly was quoted as saying by News18.

The fire ignited even further when Kohli refuted the claims, saying no such request was made. “When I communicated with the BCCI first about quitting T20I captaincy, I told them that this is my point of view, these are the reasons for my decision, it was received quite well. No one took offence, no one had any hesitation. No one told me that I should not leave the T20I captaincy,” Kohli told the press.