Virat Kohli, former Indian cricket team captain, trained at the Arun Jaitely Stadium in New Delhi on Tuesday ahead of Delhi’s Ranji Trophy game against Railways starting Friday. The match marks Kohli’s return to Ranji Trophy for the first time since 2012, after BCCI’s diktat made it mandatory for all India stars to play domestic cricket. While domestic cricket matches rarely see much fan interest, the return of Kohli for this particular game saw a greater number of media-persons turn up at the Feroz Shah Kotla ground.
According to a report in The Indian Express, seeing the presence of many journalists and camerapersons outside the Virender Sehwag gate at the Arun Jaitley Stadium, a ‘shocked’ Delhi police sub-inspector Pradeep Rana alerted his superior: “Sir do log hi hai jyada security lag sakti hai, kuch aur log bhej do (We’ll need more security for today, please send more force).”
Just like Rishabh Pant did in the last game against Saurashtra, legendary Virat Kohli has politely declined to captain Delhi in their last Ranji Trophy home game against Railways as he wanted Ayush Badoni to continue leading the side.
“Virat was asked if he would like to captain but he has also said that he would like Ayush to continue leading the side,” a DDCA official told PTI on conditions of anonymity.
Meanwhile, the BCCI and domestic broadcasters JioCinema have decided to live-stream the match, given the immense fan interest sparked by Kohli’s presence.
The general norm is BCCI has one premier match which is aired both on TV and streaming app and for this round it is Karnataka versus Haryana as the star attraction of that game is KL Rahul.
The other two games that were supposed to be only live streamed were Punjab vs Bengal at the Eden Gardens and Baroda vs Jammu and Kashmir in Baroda.
The roster was decided well in advance and had this match not involved Kohli, there was no chance of any deviation from it.
But there was a furore in social media about the most high profile match being ignored by the broadcasters.
“A decision has been taken and JioCinema will live stream the game. So all the Virat Kohli fans who are not in Delhi, need not worry. They can watch their favourite player live,” a BCCI official told PTI on conditions of anonymity.
With PTI inputs
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