BIG update on Virat Kohli’s fitness, teammate Cheteshwar Pujara reveals THIS

Virat Kohli was ruled out of the second Test against South Africa here just before start of the game because of an upper back spasm, leaving KL Rahul to lead the side in the crucial match.

Team India Test captain Virat Kohli. (Source: Twitter)

Team India batter Cheteshwar Pujara on Wednesday (January 5) said that Test skipper Virat Kohli, who missed the ongoing second Test due to back spasm, was getting better and will soon regain fitness to play. “Officially I cannot reveal anything more but now he (Kohli) is definitely getting better and I feel that he will be fit very soon,” Pujara said during a media interaction.

Kohli was ruled out of the second Test against South Africa here just before start of the game because of an upper back spasm, leaving KL Rahul to lead the side in the crucial match. Rahul had said at the toss that Kohli is expected to be available for the third and final Test from January 11 to be held in Cape Town.

Pujara said the exact status on Kohli’s fitness would come from team physio. Kohli, who has been battling a prolonged lean patch, thus will not be able to complete his landmark 100th Test in the series-finale at Cape Town.

As per the Indian team’s fixtures, Kohli, if all goes well, will now get to play his 100th Test against Sri Lanka at Bengaluru in February, provided he gets to play the third and final match against South Africa.

Pujara might have scored fifty on Wednesday but the Indian batter feels he didn’t do any extra effort for his knock on Day Three of the second Test against South Africa.

Pujara along with Ajinkya Rahane stitched a 111-run stand for the third wicket and helped India extend their lead on Wednesday. Both batters were going through a lean patch but ended up hitting crucial fifties on Day Three of the second Test.

32nd Test FIFTY for @cheteshwar1!

A solid counter-attacking knock from the #TeamIndia batter

India are 137/2 and now lead by 110 runs. #SAvIND

Follow the match > https://t.co/b3aaGXmBg9 pic.twitter.com/5C1l5j77pv — BCCI (@BCCI) January 5, 2022

“This pitch has variable bounce and it`s not easy whenever you get a variable bounce, you put it away because you never know when you will get an unplayable ball. It was a part of my game, that if get a loose ball I’ll try and convert it,” said Pujara in the post-match press conference after the end of day three’s play.

“But I didn’t do anything extra, I have been batting well and it was one of those days when everything went as per my plan. Overall really happy with the way things went and I think my partnership with Ajinkya was very crucial, given that we were at a stage where we wanted some runs for the team,” he added.

South Africa need 122 runs to win the second Test against India with six sessions left in the match here. Pujara is confident that India will seal the match on Thursday despite not picking ‘many’ wickets on Day Three.

“Whenever you have some runs on the board it always helps, if you look at this game it has been a challenging pitch but we have runs on the board, so the game is still very balanced. We haven’t picked up too many wickets today but we are confident that we`ll have more chances tomorrow,” said Pujara.

(with agency inputs)