Kohli to undergo scans on injured shoulder, says Sridhar

The Indian team's fielding coach R. Sridhar on Thursday revealed that skipper Virat Kohli, who injured his right shoulder on the opening day of the third cricket Test against Australia here, will undergo scans to determine his fitness for the rest of the match.

Kohli injured his shoulder in the 40th over when he chased a drive from Peter Handscomb off left-arm spinner Ravindra Jadeja. He went off the field immediately, and did not return for the rest of the day, with Ajinkya Rahane standing in as captain.

"Virat Kohli's injury, the exact status of it will be known by tomorrow morning," Sridhar said in the post-match press conference.

"He's going to undergo some scans later today and we'll know the exact status of it tomorrow morning and what happened today is that we took a precaution to make sure he doesn't aggravate that injury."

The 28-year-old landed on his right shoulder while diving to pull the ball back before it crossed the long-on boundary. This forced the prolific batsman to watch the rest of the day's play from the dressing room with an ice pack strapped to his shoulder.

Commenting on the technique of the dive, Sridhar said: "As far as the technique of the dive is concerned I think it was quite an intense chase to the boundary line and in his intent to save that one run he stopped the ball and landed on his right shoulder when he rolled over."

"The impact was quite heavy because of the momentum he was carrying and so there was a shock on his right shoulder. That is the current status," he added.

According to the International Cricket Council's (ICC) rules, if a player is absent from the field for longer than eight minutes, the player, "shall not be permitted to bat unless or until, in the aggregate, he has returned to the field and/or his side's innings has been in progress for at least that length of playing time for which he has been absent or, if earlier, when his side has lost five wickets."

It will be interesting to see if the umpires allow Kohli to bat at his regular position if India manage to bowl Australia out cheaply on Friday.

--IANS

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