Former Indian captain Virat Kohli has returned to Mumbai due to a personal emergency before the warm-up game against the Netherlands on October 3. It is still not known what the emergency is and whether Virat will be available for the game on October 3.
“A source from the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) confirmed that he went to Mumbai for personal reasons. Virat will rejoin the team soon,” Cricbuzz quoted a source as saying.
India’s first warm-up game against England was abandoned due to rain. Virat also wasn’t a part of the first two ODI matches against Australia and scored a fifty on his return in the final match of the three-match ODI series against Australia which India lost.
Return of the King
Virat has had a great run in 2023 after facing a dried run of form in the last three years. He has scored a century in every format since September 2022 and is entering the World Cup in a rich vein of form. “The last two and a half years have taught me a lot. Those angry celebrations are a thing of the past. I have had many suggestions, lots of advice has come my way; people were telling me I was doing this wrong, that wrong,” Kohli said, as per ICC.
“I picked out all the videos from the best time I had, same initial movement, same approach towards the ball and it was just what was happening inside my head, I wasn’t able to explain it to anyone,” he added. In the upcoming Cricket World Cup, Kohli could go on to cement his place in history by breaking a few more all-time records.
The Real Test
After tomorrow’s warm-up game against the Netherlands, the Indian side will begin their World Cup 2023 journey with the opening encounter against Australia on October 8. India had recently defeated the Kangaroos 2-1 on home soil during the recently concluded 3-match ODI series.
India’s World Cup Squad: Rohit Sharma (c), Hardik Pandya (vc), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul, Ravindra Jadeja, Shardul Thakur, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Shami, Ravichandran Ashwin Ishan Kishan and Suryakumar Yadav
