According to a report by Cricbuzz, Kohli, who was supposed to be with the Indian team currently playing an intra-squad warm-up game in Pretoria, has instead returned back home to India due to a personal emergency.

India’s first Test against South Africa is scheduled to start on December 26 in Centurion, and according to the report, Kohli is expected to be back in Johannesburg by Friday (December 22), which means he should be available for the first Test. Some reports also suggest that Kohli has gone to meet his wife in London and might be back by December 24.

Kohli hasn’t played international cricket since the 2023 World Cup final on November 19, and the Test series against South Africa will be his first outing for India since the heartbreaking loss. He, along with several other senior members were rested from the ODIs in order to prepare for the two-Test series.

Unfortunately though, Kohli wasn’t able to participate in the three-day intra-squad game that was scheduled. Sarfaraz Khan, meanwhile, scored a swashbuckling hundred in the warm-up game, reaching three figures in just 63 balls.

2023 has been a productive year for Kohli in Tests. After going through a prolonged rut that coincided with the pandemic, where he didn’t score a single hundred for three consecutive years, averaging less than 30 in each one of those (2020, 2021, 2022), he has bounced back strongly this year across formats.

In Tests in 2023, Kohli averages 55.70, having scored 557 runs from 10 innings including one fifty and two hundreds. The last time India toured South Africa for a Test series, it turned out to be Kohli’s last as a captain. With the bat, he managed 161 runs from two Tests in that series at an average of 40.25. Given his standards, India would be hoping for better returns from him this time around.