‘Playing county cricket will improve my game’ – Virat Kohli

Virat Kohli, the India captain, has reiterated his desire to play county cricket and fine-tune his game ahead of his team’s Test and limited-overs series in England, to take place from July to September.

Kohli had a difficult time in India’s previous tour of England in 2014. India lost the Test series 3-1, despite being 1-0 up after two matches, and Kohli totalled just 134 runs in five Tests with a high score of 39.

Kohli has since said he was “thankful” for the tour as it had led to him being a “really improved cricketer”. He is **currently ranked No.2 in the MRF Tyres ICC Rankings**for Test batsmen and leads the chart in the rankings for one-day international batsmen.

However, he is determined to improve his record in the country he has been found out in, and to that end, he has opened himself up to the possibility of playing county cricket in June.

“Playing county cricket will help me improve my game,” the 29-year-old was quoted as saying by NDTV. “I think it makes things more challenging and more competitive and there are no guarantees whether you are going to do well even if you go in advance.

“It's just about giving yourself more opportunity to get used to the conditions that you are not used to.”

Kohli was strongly linked with a move to Surrey as recently as last month, but neither side confirmed the deal. Surrey have since signed up South Africa opener Dean Elgar for two months, having lost Mitchell Marsh through injury.

However, that still leaves an opening for Kohli to sign up with them in June after his IPL commitments are over.

Cheteshwar Pujara and Ishant Sharma are other India Test regulars in action during the first round of the new County Championship season.

Pujara didn’t get a chance to feature for Yorkshire after their clash against Essex was abandoned without a ball bowled. Sharma, however, impressed with five wickets for Sussex against Warwickshire.

India have a four-day warm-up match against Essex lined up ahead of the five-match Test series which begins on 1 August.