Why Virat Kohli turned to old ally Sanjay Bangar ahead of Ranji Trophy outing?

Ranji Trophy: Kohli had opted out of Delhi’s previous match, against Saurashtra, due to a neck sprain.

Shamik Chakrabarty

January 28, 2025 / 13:06 IST

Virat Kohli trains with former India batting coach. (AFP Photo)

Ranji Trophy: In Australia, Virat Kohli became a ‘chase-master’ of a different kind, going after deliveries outside off and nicking them behind the stumps or in the slip cordon. He tried hard to get out of the rut, tinkered with his approach and technique. He stood outside the crease to negate the movement and then his back leg cutting the popping crease. He opened his stance and went side-on. People called him to shun the cover drive. In the final innings of the series, in Sydney, Kohli went completely side-on, which cancelled out his favourite shot. And yet, he edged a Scott Boland delivery to Steve Smith at slip. He returned from the series with 190 runs from nine innings. A second-innings century in Perth was the only saving grace.

As the batsmen, including Kohli, repeated the same mistakes, the role of the Indian team coaching staff was called into question. Sunil Gavaskar aimed a brutal dig at them after India’s 3-1 series defeat. “What is your coaching staff doing? We need to talk about the batting coach. Look at the Test matches against New Zealand. We were all out for very less. We lost all matches and there was no strength in our batting. Even in Australia, there was no strength in our batting. So questions should be asked; what have you done? Why can't we see any improvement,” the legendary former India captain told Star Sports.

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As for Kohli, from a distance it felt like his on-field communications with the coaching staff – head coach Gautam Gambhir and his assistants Abhishek Nayar and Ryan ten Doeschate, were limited. A new coaching set-up takes time to bed in and maybe, it was not easy for them to approach a player of Kohli’s stature and discuss his batting frailties. From the batsman’s point of view, maybe, it was taking time to gel with the new coaching team.

From that perspective, Kohli turning to Sanjay Bangar before returning to domestic cricket for Delhi, is hardly surprising. Over the last couple of days, visuals have emerged on social media of the former India captain working with the ex-India and Royal Challengers Bengaluru batting coach at a training facility in Mumbai. The two go along very well. In fact, Kohli was instrumental in bringing Bangar to the RCB fold after the latter’s stint with the Indian team was over. There's mutual trust. Also, Bangar’s time with the Indian team, from 2014 to 2019, coincided with Kohli’s peak in international cricket. It was a period when Kohli scored 19 of his 30 Test hundreds. He was going at an average of 59.88. It has now dropped to 46.85.