Net profits for Kohli? Captain adopts innovative training method

IMAGE: India batsmen go through the grind at the nets at the Oval in London on Saturday, the eve of their Champions Trophy match. Photograph: BCCI/Twitter

There is hardly anyone in the current India team, who works on his own batting harder than Virat Kohli.

He has encountered technical problems outside the off-stump and perhaps that's one of the reasons he opted for throwdowns against the red duke ball, an effort to counter the swing factor in England at the on-going Champions Trophy.

It was an out-of-the box training session for Kohli, who walked first into the nets on the eve of the match against South Africa.

He walked into the middle net where fielding coach R Sridhar, throwdown expert Raghavendra and batting coach Sanjay Bangar were giving throwdowns.

Bangar was seen giving throwdowns with a red duke balls used for Test matches.

IMAGE: Former India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni walks out for the training session. Photograph: John Sibley Livepic/Action Images via Reuters

It's not a usual sight to see batsmen taking red ball-throwdowns before ODIs.

The logic behind taking red ball-throwdowns is that it will deviate in air throwing various challenges. Kohli was seen tackling incoming and outgoing deliveries along with extra bounce.

The white ball doesn't swing much and if one wants to practice batting against swing bowling, one needs to have a few hits against the red ball.

Sridhar and Raghavendra however gave throwdowns with white ball.

After 25 minutes of throwdowns, Virat then faced Umesh Yadav at paper's nets followed by a short session against spinners.

IMAGE: India coach Anil Kumble speaks with Yuvraj Singh during the nets. Photograph: John Sibley Livepic/Action Images via Reuters

Yuvraj Singh rolled his arm over and got one to bounce from the spot. Yuvi had a wry smile and Kohli was seen telling him, "Match pe paata hoga (It will be a flat deck for the match)".

Anil Kumble devoted his maximum time behind Ashwin keeping a close tab on his bowling.

Later he was seen helping Jasprit Bumrah and Hardik Pandya with spot bowling which would enable them hit the right length.

Lastly, during the whole course of time, both captain and coach were not seen interacting with each other.

It could be purely coincidental that Kumble came back to the spinners’ nets some 15 minutes after Kohli left the nets having taken a second round of throwdowns from Bangar, this time with the white ball.

Recommended by Rediff.com