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Virat Kohli is poised to retire from Test cricket, with BCCI officials reportedly scrambling to convince the Indian great to change his mind.
According to ESPNcricinfo, Kohli, one of India’s greatest ever cricketers, has told the board of his desire to call stumps on a glittering career immediately, with no desire to play in an upcoming five-match Test series in England.
Such a call would bring to a close a 123-match Test career which has featured 30 centuries and 9230 runs – both the fourth-most by an Indian – which, combined with his extraordinary ODI and T20I figures, make him one of the greatest batters of all time.
The 36-year old retired from T20I cricket following India’s T20 World Cup triumph in June last year.
Retirement from Tests would mark his final series as a 3-1 loss to Australia in the most recent summer, in which he scored just his third Test century since 2019 in the first Test but faded thereafter, and was widely pilloried for a mocking ‘sandpaper’ gesture during the fifth Test loss at the SCG.
Kohli is yet to make a public retirement announcement, but reports from India claim the BCCI are desperate for him to play one final series, given former captain Rohit Sharma has already retired from Tests to leave a glaring lack of experience in India’s batting line-up.
The veteran has a mixed record in England, famously scoring 583 runs at an average of 59.3 with two centuries in a series loss in 2018 but averaging just 33.21 in 17 Tests overall.
Another veteran in Ravichandran Ashwin has also called it quits in the last 12 months, while Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane are unlikely to be recalled for their first Tests since 2023, leaving new captain Jasprit Bumrah and all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja as the only senior figures around the Test team.
While Kohli has notably lost form since the COVID-19 pandemic, at his peak he was the best all-format batters in the world and a commanding figurehead of Indian cricket.
As captain between 2014 and 2022, he took India to hitherto unseen heights, including a maiden Test series win over Australia in Australia in 2018/19, and a national record 40 wins in 68 games at the helm.
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