Huge demand for tickets at Kohli's happy hunting ground in Adelaide

Bengaluru, November 14: Virat Kohli's populairity in Australia knows no bounds. The Indian skipper's decision to avail paternity leave and go back home after the first Test in Adelaide has been hailed by all including Australia's coach Justin Langer.

The Indian batting mainstay will handover the captaincy to Ajinkya Rahane and head back home after the first Test to be with his wife Anushka Sharma for the birth of their first child due in January.

The pink-ball day/night Test in Adelaide is the first of the four-match series and with Kohli featuring in only that match, local media reports say that there has been a huge increase in demand for tickets.

A total of 27,000 spectators, which is 50 per cent of the total capacity of the Adelaide Oval, will be allowed on each day of the Test match which begins on December 17.

According to Melbourne-based cafe owner Angadh Singh Oberoi, who runs the Swami Army supporter group of Indian cricket fans and will be dishing out the tickets via a ballot, the demand for tickets in the group has been particularly high for the series opener.

"There's a lot of interest in the day-night Test because we're getting inundated with requests for that. So there's certainly demand but it's whether all the logistics and ticketing can come together in time for it," Oberoi was quoted as saying by the Sydney Morning Herald.

"We've been in discussions with Cricket Australia about numbers. They seemed a little bit optimistic that it might extend beyond the 25,000 but who knows?" said Oberoi.

Kohli will miss the remaining three Tests of the four-match series -- Boxing Day Test in Melbourne (December 26-30), New Year's Test in Sydney (January 7-11) and the final game at Brisbane (January 15-19).

Langer has already said that India will feel his absence badly.

This will be Kohli's fourth Test tour of Australia. Kohli has fond memories of the Adelaide Oval as it was here on his first tour in 2012 that he scored his maiden century in Test matches.

Later on his second tour Down Under in 2014, Kohli scored a hundred in both innings in Adelaide.