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India play down Kohli injury concerns

The India skipper appeared to be in pain while batting but his teammate doesn't think his back injury is all that serious

India say Virat Kohli's back problem isn't a serious concern and shouldn't hamper his participation in the remainder of the third Domain Test against Australia.

Kohli received treatment on the field from India's Australian physio Patrick Farhart during his innings at the MCG on Thursday. He also took a tablet and appeared to be hampered in his movements, although he was able to continue batting.

The skipper has a recent history of back issues, but teammate Cheteshwar Pujara was unconcerned when speaking after play.

"I don't think it's serious," said Pujara, who was batting with Kohli at the time he received treatment.

"The cause of the injury, I'm obviously not a physio so I can't say much about it. But I don't think it's serious.

"We had a wonderful partnership today … so I'm really pleased with that."

Pujara thinks India have enough runs

Kohli called for treatment during a sustained period of short-pitched bowling from Mitchell Starc that had the Indian skipper ducking and then taking on the left-armer.

He played two crunching pull shots well forward of square to the boundary before he was dismissed in the same over, caught at third man as he pushed another short ball over the slips cordon.

Kohli was forced off the field during the second Test against England earlier this year due to back soreness and also sat out a Twenty20 against South Africa in February for the same reason.

The 30-year-old pulled out of a stint with English county side Surrey in June due to a neck problem and, given his immense workload as India's captain in all three forms of the game, has been rested at other times during the year.

Kohli was uncharacteristically sedate during his innings of 82 from 204 balls on Thursday, the second-slowest of his 45 Test scores of 50 or more.

Kohli raises his bat for classy 82

Pujara, meanwhile, crept along at a strike rate of 33 during his innings of 106, leading former Australian captain Ricky Ponting to question whether India's tactics had left them enough time to win the match over the next three days. 

But having scored his second century of the series, Pujara said the nature of sluggish MCG surface made it difficult to push the game forward.

"The conditions are really challenging and I had to work really hard to get a hundred," he said.

"It took me almost four sessions to get a hundred. 

"It's a challenging pitch … scoring was really difficult.

"To score 200 in a day is a tough task. And we saw today the pitch is starting to deteriorate and there's some variable bounce."

Domain Test Series v India

Dec 6-10: India won by 31 runs

Dec 14-18: Australia won by 146 runs

Dec 26-30: Third Test, MCG

Jan 3-7: Fourth Test, SCG

Australia squad: Tim Paine (c, wk), Josh Hazlewood (vc), Mitch Marsh (vc), Pat Cummins, Aaron Finch, Peter Handscomb, Marcus Harris, Travis Head, Usman Khawaja, Nathan Lyon, Shaun Marsh, Peter Siddle, Mitchell Starc, Archie Schiller

India squad: Virat Kohli (c), Murali Vijay, KL Rahul, Mayank Agarwal, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Hardik Pandya, Hanuma Vihari, Rohit Sharma, Rishabh Pant (wk), Parthiv Patel (wk), Ravi Ashwin, Ravi Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Shami, Ishant Sharma, Umesh Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar