Virat Kohli keeps all his options open with regards to England tour

India captain Virat Kohli is determined for a win in England and is leaving no stone unturned in the preparation. Kohli wants good match time before the England tour resumes, so that he can give himself enough time to adjust to the conditions. 

There has been some confusion regarding the dates of India’s 2 T20I games against Ireland (June 27 and 29) clashing with Kohli’s last game with Surrey against Yorkshire at Scarborough (June 25 to 28), hence, the skipper wants to keep all his options open.  

There have been reports that Kohli might miss the first T20I against Ireland and would feature in the second T20I, after finishing his county commitments. However, there is also a possibility that he might miss his last county game and play both the T20Is for India. 

"The situation is pretty fluid right now. There is an arrangement with Surrey which allows Virat to honour his national commitment. So if he gets sufficient match time in the first two games, we might see him skipping the Yorkshire match and play both T20Is. But then there is no guarantee of English weather," a senior BCCI office-bearer told PTI on condition of anonymity.

"If weather plays spoilsport in the first two games (Hampshire and Somerset), then obviously, he will play against Yorkshire," he added.

Given the long tour of England, BCCI also doesn’t want their ace batsman to take too much load on his body playing first class cricket.  

Reports mention that BCCI might request ECB to push back the dates of the India A vs England Lions game at Worcester, which might give Kohli time to get into the groove of Test matches. India A’s match is scheduled to be played from July 16 to July 19.

"All we can say at the moment is Virat is playing the three Royal London Cup matches followed by two county games till June 23. Post that, any decision that will be taken will depend on the situation that he will be in," the office-bearer added.