Social media erupts as Virat Kohli spotted with Vijay Mallya lookalike in Essex

After their defeat in the ODI series against England, the Indian team is scheduled to play a five-match Test series against England. Recently, Virat Kohli and his men played a three-day warm-up match against Essex at County Ground in Chelmsford. The visitors had a reasonable outing as the match ended in a draw. More importantly, they put up a reasonable show in the contest with both bat and ball.

The top order remains to be a concern with the likes of Shikhar Dhawan and Cheteshwar Pujara unable to hit their straps with the willow. However, the skipper played a decent knock of 68 runs from 93 balls in the first innings. He smacked 12 boundaries in his knock and looked determined to convert. Unfortunately, he was dismissed by Aron Nijjar against the run of play.

He went for an ambitious drive through the covers but nicked the leather into the palms of Varun Chopra in the slip cordon. He also scored the runs at a strike-rate of 73.11, which meant that the bowlers weren’t able to curb the Delhi-born batsman from unleashing his wide array of strokes. In the second innings, he didn’t come to bat and gave others an opportunity.

The first Test will start on August 1 at Edgbaston in Birmingham and Kohli’s men have a stern test ahead of them in red-ball cricket. Last time around, the national team flunked by 1-3 and would be hoping to put forth a resilient show in the upcoming encounters. Meanwhile, the Indian captain also took out some time to get clicked with a group of fans.

The official Instagram handle of the Indian Cricket Team posted a photograph and wrote, “They all love him here #KingKohli”

Here is the picture

They all love him here #KingKohli

A post shared by Team India (@indiancricketteam) on Jul 26, 2018 at 3:07am PDT

However, the social media users noticed something fishy in the picture. A Vijay Mallya lookalike was seen sitting in front of Kohli. He was previously the chairman of the Royal Challengers Bangalore, the team Kohli has played for since the inception of the Indian Premier League in 2008. Quite expectantly Twiteratti trolled the 29-year-old.

Here is how social media reacted

How Virat Kohli can meet Vijay Mallya when he is absconding from India? 😡 Kohli must be punished for this

— Rajesh Kolwalkar (@beingrajeshmri) July 27, 2018

Indian cricket team’s official Instagram handle posted a picture of an unspecified person with Virat Kohli, leading online fraternity into a furore.

Person in photograph bears an uncanny resemblance to India’s financial absconder Vijay Mallya, who is currently on the run. pic.twitter.com/iZ3KNfrdH9

— binay kumar (@binaykumar48) July 27, 2018

For a minute I thought Virat Kohli had his hands on Vijay Mallya's shoulder.

— Yash Agarwalla (@Yashagarwalla) July 26, 2018

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