To address his weakness outside the off stump on the back of length balls, star batter Virat Kohli has reunited with former Indian batting coach Sanjay Bangar ahead of his Ranji trophy return.
Kohli, who pulled out of the sixth-round clash of the domestic premier red-ball tournament due to a 'neck sprain', is set to feature in Delhi's last group game against Railways at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi from January 30 onwards.
According to a report in the news agency PTI, Kohli was seen honing his batting skills at a personally developed facility off proper Mumbai city limits. The former India all-rounder Bangar has developed the facility for Kohli.
Bangar fed balls to Kohli from a short distance of 16 yards and the focus was on playing the rising balls on the backfoot. There was another special arrangement for his training as a portable cement slab was placed at the back of the length area to make the balls rise steeply from that area.
Kohli has been a front-foot player and rarely plays square cuts and square drives on the backfoot. This was on full display in the Border-Gavaskar series, where he made 190 runs and was dismissed on the same pattern of back-of-length balls outside off stump. Now he is looking to develop shots off the back foot.
Meanwhile, Bangar has previously worked with the Indian team as batting coach from 2014 to 2019, the same period when Kohli was in insane touch. He even rated Bangar highly when he left his job for Vikram Rathour to take over.
"When Kohli's feedback was sought post-2019 World Cup, he had given a glowing certificate to Bangar, stating that as a batter, he had benefitted a lot from his technical inputs during all those years," a senior BCCI official, who was then associated with the appointment of support staff, said as quoted by PTI.
Meanwhile, the Delhi & Districts Cricket Association (DDCA) officials have put up arrangements for at least 10,000 fans to come and watch Delhi's clash against Railways, expecting a decent crowd with Kohli making a return to the domestic arena.
He last played a Ranji trophy match in 2012 against Uttar Pradesh and is now set to feature in the red-ball tournament after 13 years.