Bob Willis calls Surrey’s decision of allowing Virat Kohli to play County as “Nonsense”

Bob Willis calls Surrey’s decision of allowing Virat Kohli to play County as “Nonsense”

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Former England pacer Bob Willis has lashed out at Surrey county club and termed their move of including Virat Kohli in their squad as “nonsense” stating that it will help the latter adjust to English conditions. Willis has also claimed that allowing the foreign players will cost the local talents.

The trend of playing county cricket in England has been famous for a long time and after Cheteshwar Pujara and R Ashwin, the Indian skipper also decided to play the county cricket. The reason behind Kohli’s request is to complete all their preparations ahead of the start of the series against England and Surrey announced that they are ready to welcome one of the best cricketers of the current time in his side.

But Willis expressed his unhappiness over players from outside improving their skills in county cricket and also added that it also hampered the growth of the country’s local players.

"I can't stand overseas players in county cricket. It doesn't benefit the players stranded in the second XI year on year and the youngsters,” he said as quoted by Cricketnext.

"They're going to pay Kohli, presumably, five figures a match so he can hone his skills in English conditions before a Test series. It's nonsense.”

After the series against South Africa, England is considered as one of the tough challenges for the Indian side especially for Kohli as the Delhi player played only five Test matches so far in the country scoring 134 runs at an average of 13.40. He is looking forward to improving his record during the upcoming tour as India is going to visit England for a full series comprising three T20Is, three ODIs, and five Tests.

"He should be made to suffer and average 30 in England as he has done before. We don't want England starting to lose Test matches at home because we're accommodating all of these visiting players,” the 68-year-old said.

Apart from Pujara and Kohli, Ishant Sharma and Varun Aaron are the other players who will be playing in county cricket this year.

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