Johannesburg, January 3
The upper back spasm that ruled Virat Kohli out of the second Test could well be a recurrence of the slip disc problem that had stopped him from playing English county cricket in 2018.
The Indian skipper missed out on what would have been his 99th Test, adding to the intriguing drama that is unfolding around him on an almost daily basis now.
The withdrawal came after the skipper had a good net session at the Wanderers ground on Sunday afternoon and coach Rahul Dravid, as is his wont, didn’t drop the slightest hint that the skipper had any back issues.
Kohli, in fact, had posted some snap-shots of his training session on social media, in which he was seen lunging forward and playing the on-drive. It was obvious that he felt fine as he went through an intense net session, only to develop discomfort on the morning of the match.
Interestingly, his IPL team, Royal Challengers Bangalore, had tweeted a picture of KL Rahul with the comment: “The focus shifts to the Wanderers as #TeamIndia have a chance to seal the series.” Interestingly, it was posted 12 noon IST, at least one hour before Kohli’s injury status was revealed at the toss by Rahul, who is not a part of the RCB set-up. Although, to be fair to Rahul and RCB, the tweet didn’t mention Rahul as India captain.
Back to back
Kohli having troubles with his back isn’t a new thing.
In 2018, he was suffering from a condition called ‘herniated disc’ (slipped disc) and was advised by doctors to not play county cricket for Surrey if he wanted to be part of the Test series after that. The condition didn’t warrant a surgery, which could have ruled him out for a good three to four months. A back spasm is sudden tightness and pain in the back muscles. It may happen from overuse of muscles or due to an injury.
In Kohli’s case, as someone who is a fitness freak and pushes his body to the limit, the chances of a back injury are always high and as one reaches the mid-30s, recovery takes more time.
If Kohli recovers within a week to play the third and final Test in Cape Town, it would then mean that the injury isn’t very serious.
With India 1-0 up, Kohli must have wanted to play this game and get back to form, which has been patchy for nearly two years now. He was seen sombrely ambling around the Bull Ring before the start of the game and looked visibly disappointed on having to miss a game.
Conflicts
If runs have dried up on the field, his off-field relationship with the BCCI hasn’t exactly made matters easy: The establishment’s poster boy is no longer on very good terms with the bigwigs of the board.
So much so that Dravid, who always eschews any hint of a controversy, acknowledged that Kohli is being “phenomenal” around the team group in spite of all the “noise” around him. It was an admission that the feisty Indian Test captain is under pressure.
Kohli would have surely addressed the media before the Cape Town Test, which starts on January 11, as it would have been his landmark 100th Test — that’s what Dravid said on Sunday.
But now it can’t be said with any degree of certainty whether he would be in a mood to take questions from the media ahead of his 99th Test. The media might want to ask him about chief selector Chetan Sharma’s comment — supporting BCCI president Sourav Ganguly — that Kohli had been asked to “reconsider” giving up India’s T20 captaincy. — PTI
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