India Test skipper Virat Kohli missed the 2nd Test against South Africa at the Wanderers Stadium in Johannesburg owing to a back spasm and, KL Rahul was asked to lead the side in his absence.
However, now it has been learnt that the 33-year-old may miss the three-match ODI series against the Proteas as well. The reason could be the upper back spasm which could be a recurrence of the slip disc problem that had stopped him from playing English county cricket back in 2018.
The news of Kohli missing out on the 2nd Test had come out on the day of the match. He had a good net session at the Wanderers and even posted some snap-shots of his training session where he was seen lunging forward and playing the on-drive.
Interestingly, Kohli’s Indian Premier League (IPL) team Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) had tweeted a picture of KL Rahul with a tweet, “The focus shifts to the Wanderers as #TeamIndia have a chance to seal the series,” before anyone knew about the change in captaincy.
The focus shifts to the Wanderers as #TeamIndia have a chance to seal the series.
It’s MATCH DAY, 12th Man Army! #PlayBold #SAvIND pic.twitter.com/2WrUWxTQKr
— Royal Challengers Bangalore (@RCBTweets) January 3, 2022
Surely, RCB did not mention anything about captaincy, but the picture coming out an hour before the match and Kohli getting ruled out did raise speculations.
Virat Kohli’s 2018 back problem:
The Test skipper has had troubles with his back and in 2018, he was suffering from a condition called ‘herniated disc’ (slipped disc). He was advised by the doctor to not play county cricket for Surrey if he wanted to be part of the Test series after that.
A back spasm is a sudden tightness and pain in back muscles and it may happen from overuse of a muscle or an injury. If Kohli fails to recover from injury, his participation in the three-match ODI series might also be uncertain.
Earlier, regular white-ball skipper Rohit Sharma was already ruled out of the ODI series after not recovering from his injury and KL Rahul will be leading in his place with Jasprit Bumrah appointed as his deputy.
If Kohli recovers within a week and will be able to play the third and final Test in Cape Town, it would then mean that his injury was not very serious.
(With PTI inputs)
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