Virat Kohli announced a shock retirement from Test cricket in the days leading up to what turned out to be an epic five-match series between India and England. Kohli’s announcement came closely on the heels of Rohit Sharma’s own retirement and it meant it was a largely new-look Indian leadership during the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy with Shubman Gill as captain. Gill had an extraordinary series with the bat and led India to a 2-2 draw but former captain Dilip Vengsarkar feels that the selectors should’ve persuaded Kohli to hold off his retirement until after the marquee series.
Vengsarkar, who was chief selector between 2006 and 2008, said that India needed Kohli’s experience in the series. “If I were the Indian chief selector, I would have persuaded Virat to bid goodbye to Test cricket after playing the England series. We needed his class and experience in this series,” he is quoted as saying by Times of India.
Kohli had famously failed to fire in his first Test series in England in 2014 and then, just as famously, scored as many as 655 runs in the 2018 tour in which he was captain. However, he then didn’t have a very memorable tour of England subsequently in 2021/22 which included the World Test Championship final. Kohli has scored a total of 1096 runs in 17 Tests that he has played in England at an average of 33.21.
Kohli opened up on his decision to retire from Tests last month while India were touring England. “I just coloured my beard two days ago. You know it’s time when you are colouring your beard every four days,” he said. Both Kohli and Rohit last played any kind of top level cricket in the 2024 season of the IPL. With India not set to play any ODI cricket until the end of the year in Australia and South Africa, the pair are going to be out of action for quite a long time which has contributed in speculation over whether they will be in the selectors’ plans at all.
