New Delhi, Jan 27: Sanjay Bangar was a ringside witness to Virat Kohli’s peak as an international cricketer between 2014 to 2019 and it was hardly surprising to find the former India batting coach being summoned by the star for a special net session ahead of his Ranji Trophy comeback after more than 12 years.Following the BCCI’s diktat to all centrally contracted cricketers to be available for domestic cricket, Kohli, who has been struggling for form, will be playing in Delhi’s last league game against Railways at the Kotla from January 30.
Kohli’s national team colleagues like skipper Rohit Sharma, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubman Gill, Rishabh Pant and Ravindra Jadeja all fulfilled their ‘SOP duty’ by playing the just-concluded round of Ranji Trophy.
Among the stars, only Jadeja (12 wickets, 38 runs) and Gill (second innings 102) enjoyed fruitful outings.
For Kohli, 190 runs in 9 complete knocks in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy raised serious question marks about his future in international cricket. The 36-year-old has been dealing with technical issues against deliveries on and outside the off-stump channel with a similar pattern of dismissals.
If one speaks to knowledgeable people in the Indian cricket circuit, they would tell you about the comfort level that Kohli used to share with batting coach Bangar during their five years in the national team.
Between 2014 to 2019, Kohli scored the bulk of his 80 international hundreds and since the end of Bangar’s tenure, he has made only two Test centurion in the last five years.
Bangar had to move on from the national team after the 2019 ODI World Cup as Vikram Rathour was roped in as the batting coach.
“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.