The Indian cricket team has yet another injury scare ahead of the 2025 Champions Trophy, with ace pace bowler Jasprit Bumrah already on that list. Star batter Virat Kohli missed India’s first ODI against England in Nagpur with a swollen knee-this is a rare occurrence for someone so fit. He was seen warming up before the toss with a heavily strapped right knee, moving around gingerly.
At the toss, India captain Rohit Sharma said that Kohli had not made into their playing eleven because of a knee problem, even as the hosts inducted Yashasvi Jaiswal and Harshit Rana into ODI.
As per The Times of India, the team management is quite hopeful that Kohli will be fit for the 2nd ODI, which is scheduled for Saturday in Cuttack.
“His (Kohli) right knee was fine during practice, but once we got back to the hotel, it swelled up. It doesn’t seem that bad though. He will play the Cuttack ODI in all likelihood,” team insiders were quoted as saying by the paper.
It remains to be seen whether Kohli will travel to the BCCI Centre of Excellence in Bengaluru to get his knee checked further or leave with the team to Cuttack for the next match of this three-match series, which India leads 1-0.
Kohli last played an ODI last August during India’s tour of Sri Lanka and before that, made a record-breaking series of performance in the 2023 ODI World Cup, where India finished as runners-up.
The Indian team is eagerly awaiting the result of a scan, which would decide if Bumrah is available to play in the third ODI of the England series, as originally scheduled. He did, however, not feature in the updated squad announced just before the first ODI in favor of leg-spinner Varun Chakravarthy, who was included following a man-of-the-series award-winning performance in the five-match T20I series against England.
