Cricket: Surrey keen to sign India captain Virat Kohli

Surrey would be interested in signing India captain Virat Kohli if he were to become available before India’s tour of England, according to Surrey’s director Alec Stewart.

The Indian board is understood to be ready to allow Kohli to miss Afghanistan’s inaugural Test against India, to be played at Bangalore on June 14, and India’s two T20 internationals in Ireland later that month, to give Kohli an opportunity to acclimatise to English conditions.

Kohli, widely considered to be the world’s best batsman over all formats, had a disastrous series on his only previous tour of England, averaging 13 in 2014, and has long since expressed an interest in playing some county cricket to prepare for this summer. India lost 4-0 on their last tour, as did England on their last tour of India.

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“We have Mitch Marsh signed as our overseas player with Aaron Finch being added in for our T20 Blast,” Stewart said from Surrey’s pre-season tour of Dubai.

“I did enquire a while back about Kohli when it appeared to be a possible option for him to play county cricket but was told India were playing Ireland in T20s and an inaugural Test against Afghanistan in June before the England tour. If he does now become available we would look at it again to see if it could potentially work around our current overseas arrangements.”

In the last three weeks of June, Surrey have three Championship matches that might suit Kohli, starting with a game against Hampshire at the Ageas Bowl on June 9, followed by a game against Somerset at Guildford then an away game against Yorkshire at Scarborough.

The cost of beefing up security, to keep fans away from the world’s most famous cricketer, would have to be taken into consideration by the counties concerned.

Former Surrey and England batsman Graham Thorpe made it clear he would not be surprised to hear Kohli is on the wish-list at The Oval - where his ex-club and country team-mate Alec Stewart is director of cricket.

"I'm sure Stewie will be looking at his back pocket and seeing if he can fund it up to get him with a brown cap on his head," said Thorpe, currently in New Zealand as batting coach for the Test leg of England's tour.

Asked if Kohli would be a good addition to county cricket, Thorpe likened his possible impact to that made by the great Brian Lara - who hit the all-time first-class record high score of 501 not out after joining Warwickshire in 1994.

"That's entirely up to the counties, if they decide to sign him up," he said of Kohli. "It would be good for him. It would be very good for him. When Lara came over, look what he did."