Virat Kohli to be present as special guest at Pro Kabaddi League in Mumbai

India captain Virat Kohli will be present as a special guest at the start of the Mumbai leg of the Pro Kabaddi League (PKL) 2019 on Saturday. The 30-year-old ace batsman will soon leave for the West Indies with the Indian team for a month-long tour starting August 3. India will be playing three T20Is, as many ODIs and two Tests during the tour. The first two of the three T20Is will be played in the United States while the remaining games will be held in the Caribbeans.

The Hyderabad phase of PKL 2019 will conclude on Friday and in the first game of the Mumbai phase, U Mumba will take on Puneri Paltan. The Indian captain will also be seen singing the national anthem before the start of the game which will be played at Dome, NSCI SVP Stadium, Mumbai. Saturday’s fixture will also see Jaipur Pink Panthers taking on Bengal Warriors. The Mumbai leg will take place between July 27 and August 2.

A 2-0 win in Windies Tests will see Kohli becoming most successful India captain

Coming back to the West Indies-India series, it will be the first time that Kohli will be leading India in all three formats in the Caribbeans. In 2016, he had led India to a 2-0 win in the Test series while Mahendra Singh Dhoni was the skipper in the limited-over games. If Kohli can win the Test series by a 2-0 margin this time again, he will surpass Dhoni as the most successful Indian captain in the longer format.

There were reports earlier that Kohli would not be joining the Indian team for the limited-overs series but will go to the Caribbeans only for the Tests. However, he later decided to join all the three formats saying that he wanted to be with the team to boost its morale after the heart-breaking loss in the semi-final of the World Cup to New Zealand. The Test series will also be part of the ICC World Test Championship which is starting with the Ashes starting August 1.

Speculation was also rife that India could see a split in its captaincy with Kohli leading in Tests and Rohit Sharma in the limited-overs but that was buried after Kohli was retained as the captain across formats.