On behalf of a very solid talent in the Indian Test squad, Star batter Virat Kohli has given a special welcome to Akash Deep, who is making his debut. The pace bowler uploaded an Instagram post confirming Kohli’s special gift of one his bats ahead of the series for the first Test against Bangladesh. It should be noted that a few other players too have received MRF bats from him like Rinku Singh and Vijaykumar Vyshak.
In one of these pictures on the Instagram account, Deep wrote “Thanq bhaiya” while holding up one of the MRF-supported bats belonging to Virat Kohli.
Deep is also playing under Kohli’s captaincy at Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) since 2022 when they made two trips to playoffs together.
He made his international debut in the fourth Test match against England which was part of five earlier in year 2024. During this debut performance he had a stunning figure with three wickets during first innings through England’s top order; he dismissed Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett and Ollie Pope.
It remains the only Test of his career.
India have given Akash Deep another shot at whites after he kept on demonstrating great potential in the domestic circuit. With Mohammed Shami still not injured Deep has been chosen.
Kohli will be back in red-ball action for the first time since January 2024, when he played against South Africa. This has been Kohli’s only Test match this year, as he skipped the home series against England due to the birth of his second child.
Kohli is looking to become the fourth Indian cricketer to cross 9000 Test runs. The 35 year old only needs 152 more runs to reach this milestone. He would join Sunil Gavaskar, Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid in an elite list of Indians who have reached this run tally.
