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Should Kohli be allowed to play County Cricket before India's next tour In England?

WindieWeathers

International Regular
He seems to be interested in doing so...

Kohli 'would love' a county stint before 2018 England tour

December 15, 2016

Virat Kohli has said he would love to play county cricket in the lead-up to the tour of England in 2018, but only a short stint might be possible with current schedules. Kohli wanted at least a month's time to get used to conditions, but the IPL ends in the last week of May, and India tours to the UK generally start in the last week of June.

"If I have a chance, I would love to do that; love to be there, say a month or a month and a half and get used to playing in those conditions, understand how the wickets behave in that particular phase of the year," Kohli said. "I think those things matter a lot. Preparation time is something, which is very crucial for any side. So yeah, if I have the opportunity to go there a few days before the start that will be great. I have actually been thinking about it, trying to work out how I can make it happen. Most definitely, if I have the time I'll go and play there."

This was a great sign from the captain of a side that had become blasé about the lack of preparation time before Test tours in the recent years. If Kohli manages to squeeze in even a couple of county games before the first Test in 2018 - as opposed to nothing - he would be better equipped to handle the swing and seam prevalent in English grounds. In the 2014 tour, Kohli scored 134 runs at 13.4 in India's 3-1 defeat.
Link

Now I'm sure under normal circumtances the English public and County Cricket coaches/players would be salivating at the mouth at having a world class player like Kohli grace their cricket grounds for a couple of weeks. But the question is should county clubs answer his call if he does manage to find time on his schedule to play? Because lets be honest it's not like the English lads were playing in the ranji trophy before this current tour started and as Anderson said the other day England remains a black mark on Virat's career so why would the English help him out? Especially when you consider that keeping Kohli down again would go a long way to winning England the series?

Personally If I'm a top dog in the ECB I'm giving every single county club official a call to say stay well clear. You can't give players like Kohli a helping hand because it will no doubt bite you in the backside in the end.
 

Bijed

International Regular
I say let him in - give him time to get his technique exposed and his confidence shot before the tests roll around :ph34r:
 

ImpatientLime

International Regular
will jimmy even be playing in 2018? i'm guessing that's when india are next due and anyway, it will be woakes turn to wreck him then.

can't wait for the 2018 revenge series. then the 2018 odi, revenge, son of revenge series.
 

Burner

International Regular
I don't think the counties are going to care too much about how Kohli does against England. Probably going to be a 'is this good for us as a county team?' approach.
 

Pothas

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Never cared about the whole giving the opposition an advantage thing, having Kohli would be great for County cricket.
 

Bijed

International Regular
But what if he starts adapting to the swinging ball? I can't see Jimmy being best pleased :laugh: .
will jimmy even be playing in 2018? i'm guessing that's when india are next due and anyway, it will be woakes turn to wreck him then.

can't wait for the 2018 revenge series. then the 2018 odi, revenge, son of revenge series.
Jimmy probably won't be playing, but will instead devote several newspaper columns to criticism of how the ECB has betrayed the english bowlers by letting Kohli get in practice in English conditions, Michael Vaughan will back him up.
 

Black_Warrior

Cricketer Of The Year
Yes by all means. If anything, more A tours between nations should be arranged so allow players an opportunity to play in different conditions before an actual test series. Now with the era of home domination, and all that talk about 'biased' pitches like Nagpur and tosses favouring home teams taking place, no one actually advocates this which is the most important thing of all.
Tosses and pitches favouring home teams is not bad for cricket What would make cricket more competitive is if teams are able to adapt to foreign conditions and one way of doing that is more opportunity to play there outside of international test series.

That being said, this is actually not going to happen because Kohli, even if he wanted to, which he doesn't by the way, would not be allowed to skip IPL by his board and IPL team.
 

S.Kennedy

International Vice-Captain
Sangakarra joined Durham for about five minutes ahead of the Sri Lanka tour in 2014 which Sri Lanka won. He only played two matches: it was completely mercenary!

Then he buggered-off to money bags Surrey!
 

S.Kennedy

International Vice-Captain
Yes by all means. If anything, more A tours between nations should be arranged so allow players an opportunity to play in different conditions before an actual test series. Now with the era of home domination, and all that talk about 'biased' pitches like Nagpur and tosses favouring home teams taking place, no one actually advocates this which is the most important thing of all.
Tosses and pitches favouring home teams is not bad for cricket What would make cricket more competitive is if teams are able to adapt to foreign conditions and one way of doing that is more opportunity to play there outside of international test series.

That being said, this is actually not going to happen because Kohli, even if he wanted to, which he doesn't by the way, would not be allowed to skip IPL by his board and IPL team.
The IPL just clashes with the first two months of the CC. There is probably a June - (early) July window there assuming the Indian's get the big (second) series commencing mid-Julyish (England will probably be playing Bangladesh or somebody May-Juneish).
 
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