Virat Kohli will be in focus once again when India take field in the second Test of their two-match series against Bangladesh. While the hosts will be eyeing a 2-0 series win to strengthen their hold on top of the World Test Championship (WTC) leaderboard, Kohli and skipper Rohit Sharma will hope to get some runs under their belt after a poor outing in the first Test at Chennai.
Before arriving in Kanpur, India hammered Bangladesh by 280-runs to take an unassailable 1-0 lead in the two-Test series. But Rohit and Kohli failed in their two innings with scores of 6 & 5 and 6 & 17 respectively at the MA Chidambaram Stadium.
The squad hit the ground running at the Green Park Stadium in Kanpur, with Kohli and Rohit spending time in the nets to get rid of any leftover rust after spending time away from the game following the ODI series in Sri Lanka in early August.
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Kohli, in particular, will be desperate for runs in a year that has been way below his high standards. In 15 matches across formats this year, Kohli has scored just 319 runs, which includes a solitary half-century.
Kohli’s form will be crucial to India’s chances going ahead in the season, which includes 8 more Tests after the match in Kanpur — three against New Zealand at home, followed by five in Australia.
At India’s happy hunting ground in Kanpur over the last four decades, where the hosts haven’t lost since 1983, Kohli and Rohit will look to join the first-Test centurions Ravichandran Ashwin, Rishabh Pant and Shubman Gill and score big.