ICC Champions Trophy 2017: Virat Kohli opts for red ball throwdowns to counter swing before South Africa clash

London: There is hardly anyone in current India team, who works on his own batting harder than Virat Kohli.

He has encountered technical problems outside the off- stump and perhaps that’s one of the reasons he opted for throwdowns with a red ball, an effort to counter swing.

It was an out of the box training session for Kohli, who walked first into the nets.

He walked into the middle net where fielding coach R Sridhar, throwdown expert Raghavendra and batting coach Sanjay Bangar were giving throwdowns.

Bangar however, was using Dukes red balls which are normally used for test matches

It’s not a normal sight to see batsmen taking red ball throwdowns before ODIs.

The logic behind opting for red ball throwdowns is that it will deviate in air throwing various challenges. Kohli was seen tackling incoming and outgoing deliveries along with extra bounce.

The white ball doesn’t swing much and if one wants to practice batting against swing bowling, one needs to have a few hits against the red ball.

Sridhar and Raghavendra however gave throwdowns with white ball.

After 25 minutes of throwdown, Virat then faced Umesh Yadav at the pacers’ nets followed by a short session against spinners.

Yuvraj Singh bowled some deliveries to Kohli and got one to bounce sharply. Yuvi had a wry smile and Kohli was seen telling him, “Match pe paata hoga (It will be a flat deck for the match)”.

Anil Kumble devoted most of his time keeping a close eye on R. Ashwin while he bowled.

Kumble also spent some time with Jasprit Bumrah and Hardik Pandya as they worked on their bowling.

What stuck out was that both Kohli and Kumble were not seen interacting with each other throughout the practice session.