His mohawk hairdo caught the eye as much as his wide range of shots, but Virat Kohli was focus personified while feasting on the spinners at the nets in Melbourne on Friday, as India geared up to take on a traditionally pace-heavy South Africa in their upcoming ICC World Cup match.
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Although it is not clear whether the South African team management team would play either leg-spinner Imran Tahir or left-arm spinner Aaron Phangiso in their playing eleven, the Indian top-order batting, led by the in-form Kohli, had a field day against spinners, rather than the pacers, at the nets.
At the Junction Oval ground at St Kilda, Kohli hammered the spinners into the submission even as other specialist batsmen enjoyed their stint in the nets.
It was a day when the centre nets saw bulk of the bowling being done by reserve spinner Axar Patel, part-time off-spinner Suresh Raina and the net bowlers.
The Indians batted in sets of two with one batsman taking strike for around six deliveries before the other one would get in and hit his share of balls.
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Kohli and Rahane, who along with fast bowler Mohammad Shami were put through a regular dope test, were bracketed in a group and they treated Axar and Raina with disdain. Most of the time, Kohli was seen charging down the track and hitting over the top.
While Kohli got his timing right on most occasions when he took the aerial route, Rahane was more intent on hitting along the ground.
Later, captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni and opener Rohit Sharma batted in a group but none of the other Indian batsman had the dominance of Kohli during the session.
Kohli's century against Pakistan in the team's opening encounter of the tournament must have done his confidence a world of good and that showed in the manner he batted at the nets. It was that of supreme confidence and swagger of a man who now has a phenomenal 32 international hundreds, including 22 ODIs and 10 Test tons.
While the Indian team management clarified about Bhuvneshwar Kumar being fit and available for selection, his performances and participation during the practice session left a lot to be desired.
Just like previous day's training, the Uttar Pradesh seamer didn't bowl to any of the top-order batsmen save Raina, who bowled a lot and then fielded before having a bat at the nets.
Bhuvneshwar primarily bowled to Axar, who repeatedly pulled his short deliveries which didn't have the required pace to trouble the Gujarat all-rounder.
While he may be available for selection it looks highly unlikely that the medium pacer is in a situation to last 100 overs of high-intensity ODI cricket.
The other giveaway regarding Bhuvneshwar's fitness is the presence of pacer Dhawal Kulkarni, who has been kept as cover incase any of the seamers break down.
The Mumbai seamer, in fact, bowled more deliveries than his UP counterpart.
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