Back problem resurfaces for Kohli

Johannesburg, Jan. 3: The upper back spasm that ruled Virat Kohli out of the second Test against South Africa could well be a recurrence of the slip disc problem that had stopped him from playing English County cricket back in 2018.

The Indian skipper missed out on what would have been his 99th Test match for the country on the morning of the second game against South Africa here, adding to the intriguing drama that is unfolding around him on an almost daily basis now.

This was after the skipper had a good net session at the Wanderers on Sunday afternoon and coach Rahul Dravid, as is his wont is, didn’t drop the slightest hint that the skipper has niggling back issues which have resurfaced after nearly three and half years.

Kohli, in fact, had posted

some snap-shots of his training session where 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 a discomfort on the morning of the Test match.

Interestingly, his IPL team Royal Challengers Bangalore 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.”

Nothing wrong with the tweet save the fact that 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 them, it didn’t mention Rahul as India captain.

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 the doctor 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 good three to four months.