The Indian stalwart called time on his Test career in May 2025.
It has been more than 200 days after Virat Kohli announced his decision to call time on his Test career, but the after-effects of that decision are still surrounding cricket fans around the world. The former Indian skipper’s commitment to the longest format of the game was not a secret, which made his decision to step away from Tests all the more shocking.
That being said, Virat Kohli bowed out of the longest format as the most successful skipper for India in Test cricket. After taking over from MS Dhoni in 2015, the 37-year-old raised the standards of Indian cricket and put them up on a pedestal. From the fitness standards to the way India approached away Test series – everything changed.
However, former India star Sanjay Manjrekar has once again breached the stalwart’s retirement decision. Players like Joe Root and Steve Smith have been consistently scoring runs, with both the players having notched up magnificent centuries in the ongoing Test in Sydney. Furthermore, Kane Williamson is also going well in Test cricket, leaving Virat Kohli as the only player to retire from Tests out of the ‘fantastic four’ – as they once were called.
Manjrekar took to his Instagram channel to voice his opinions on the matter, after Joe Root got to his century in the first innings of the fifth Ashes Test in Sydney. He stated that it would have been fine if Virat Kohli announced his retirement from all the formats, but the fact that he chose to stop playing Tests was utterly disappointing.
“It was okay if Virat Kohli had just walked away from cricket, retired from all cricket. But that he’s chosen to play one-day cricket actually disappoints me more, because this is the format, for a top-order batter, I’ve said it before as well, is the easiest format”, Manjrekar stated.
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India’s performance in Test cricket has been anything but good of late. Once a team that used to considered a powerhouse at home, the Indians have been whitewashed twice within a year at home by the hands of New Zealand and South Africa respectively. Though the white-ball teams continue to perform well, the red-ball side has unlocked new lows.
But this has got a lot to do with the retirement of Cheteshwar Pujara and Ravichandran Ashwin. Not to forget Ajinkya Rahane, who hasn’t announced his retirement yet, but once used to be a powerhouse at the No.5 spot for the Indians. These players are no longer in the Test setup due to obvious reasons, and the Shubman Gill-led side are suddenly in the midst of questions ahead of every red-ball series.
What Virat Kohli brought to the Test side was much more than just runs. The former Indian skipper led from the front and loved to take challenges head on. It was under him and the coaching of Ravi Shastri that India won a Test series on Australian soil for the first time. However, while India’s problems overseas became less, their concerns at home magnified.
One thing that Manjrekar has questioned of Virat Kohli is the fact that he did not try to find any solutions to his dipping average in the later half of his career. The outside off-stump line was where he was being constantly targeted and he could not come up with a solution to that problem till the end of his Test career. Kohli countered it at times, but could not negate it completely.
“He’s walked away from Tests, and it’s unfortunate that in the five years when he struggled before retiring, he didn’t quite put his heart and soul into finding out the problems as to why he was averaging 31 for five years in Tests”, said Manjrekar in the video.
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