LONDON – Indian captain Virat Kohli is hit with a back injury reportedlydue to high work load and more number of matches which is disturbing hisfitness.
He batted with the lower back pain in the second Test against England butis confident of regaining full fitness ahead of the next game starting atNottingham on August 18, PTI has reported.
India lost the second Test by an innings and 159 runs on day four at Lord’s.
Kohli could score just 17 from 29 deliveries before becoming Stuart Board’svictim in the second innings which folded for 130 in 47 overs.
“It is a lower back issue, coming up again and again, purely because of theworkload and the number of matches I have been playing,” Kohli said whenasked if he batted with an injury which affected his movement on the crease.
“It’s five days to go. I am confident I will be fine in five days time witha bit of rehabilitation. I should be okay,” he said.
Indian batsmen capitulated once again and they were all at sea against themoving ball. James Anderson (4-23) once again toyed with the Indianbatsmen, taking his match tally to nine, and equally effective was StuartBroad (4-44).
“I am not very proud of the way we played to be honest. It is first time inthe last five Test matches we’ve been outplayed. But credit to England,they were clinical. When a team plays like that they deserve to be on thewinning side. And we deserved to lose,” he said.
Asked if the conditions had favoured the opposition, Kohli said, “We can’treally think about those things. You have to counter the conditions as andwhen they come to you. Sometimes the rub of the green will go your way too.
“We will not sit around and say that we didn’t have the best of conditions.Their bowlers were relentless with the ball. Looking at things now, theweather was so unpredictable,” he added.
Asked if inclusion of an extra seamer would have been better, he said,”Yeah looking back, I think we got the combination a bit off.” Winning teamcaptain Joe Root praised his bowlers.