Sporting a mohawk, Virat Kohli feasts on spinners at nets

MELBOURNE: His mohawk hairdo caught the eye as much as his wide range of shots, but Virat Kohli was focus personified while feasting on the spinners at the nets here today, as India geared up to take on a traditionally pace-heavy South Africa in their next cricket World Cup match.

Although it is not clear whether the South African team management team would play either leg-spinner Imran Tahir or left-arm spinner Aaron Phangiso in their playing XI, the Indian top-order batting, led by premier batsman Kohli, had a field day against spinners, rather than the pacers, at the nets.

At the Junction Oval ground at St Kilda, Kohli hammered the spinners into the submission even as other specialist batsmen enjoyed their stint at the nets.

It was a day when the centre nets saw bulk of the bowling being done by reserve spinner Axar Patel, part-time off-spinner Suresh Raina and the net bowlers.

The Indians batted in sets of two with one batsman taking strike for around six deliveries before the other one would get in and hit his share of balls.

Kohli and Rahane were bracketed in a group and they treated Axar and Raina with disdain. Most of the time, Kohli was seen charging down the track and hitting over the in-field.

While Kohli got his timing right on most occasions when he took the aerial route, Rahane was more intent on hitting through the ground.

Skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni and opener Rohit Sharma later batted in a group but none of the other Indian batsman had the dominance of Kohli at the nets.

Kohli's century against Pakistan in the team's opening encounter of the tournament must have done his confidence a world of good and that showed in the manner he batted at the nets. It was that of supreme confidence and swagger of a man who now has a phenomenal 32 international hundreds (22 ODIs and 10 Test tons).