Updated 12 May 2025 at 15:22 IST
Virat Chants Of 'Kohli, Kohli' Comes To An End As India's Test Cap 269 Decides To Leave The Red Ball Once And For All
Former India captain and the 269th player to debut for India in Test matches, Virat Kohli has announced his retirement from Test cricket after playing 123 games. Kohli has scored 9230 runs at an average of 46.85 and with a strike rate of 55.58
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Virat Kohli celebrates his last Test century in Perth during the Border-GavaskarTrophy series 2024-25 | Image:
AP
'For sixty overs they should feel like hell out there', said Virat Kohli once while captaining India, against England in England. This one line sums up how Virat Kohli played Test cricket and led India with his 'Baggy Blue' on. Once considered as a dying format, the manner in which Kohli led India in the longest format of the game and played it will go down in history. Kohli, who is his own 'Mount Rushmore' decided to walk away from the longest format and the purest format of the game, but he has left behind a void that can't be filled by anyone, anytime soon.
When Sachin Tendulkar walked away, India had seen the glimpses of brilliance in Virat Kohli, but who will stand up after the King decided to pull over his chariot? As of now, we certainly do not have an answer to that. 'Geniuses play on drives on the first ball of their Test innings', said former Australia coach and player Justin Langer during the 2018-19 edition of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy series. It was not a simple statement said by Alfie aka Langer. This statement held a lot context as Kohli played the perfect on drive, the toughest shot in the book to open his account in the first innings of the second Test match that was played in Perth.
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Grit, Determnination, Resillience: The Virat Factors That Shaped Kohli
'I don't want to be a push over player, whom the opposition thinks that they can get rid off easily', this speaks mindset, this oozes determination. All the factors that played an important part in shaping Kohli and his undying legacy that will always remain scripted in golden words, in the illustrious history of Indian cricket. Kohli not only stamped his authority in Test whites while playing against the opposition, he always passed on a clear message to the opposition that he was up for the challenge and they had to be at their very best while playing against him
Kohli got the real taste of Test match cricket when he visited England for the first time in 2014. His methods of playing and leaving the balls outside off stump, gave him a reality check of what Test cricket was all about. From 5 Test matches, Virat could only score 134 runs at an average of 13.40, but this was nothing, but a canon event in the folklore of Virat Kohli. The next time Virat Kohli toured England in 2018, he had already led the Test team for four years, had conquered world cricket and had become the superstar that he is today.
Kohli ended up scoring 593 runs from 5 Test matches and 10 innings. Kohli scored these runs at an average of 59.30 and at a strilke rate of 57.85. The Indian captain also scored two hundreds and singlehandedly kept India in the race in difficult English conditions against a swinging Dukes delivery.
Fighting Fire With Fire: The Aussie Attitiude In Virat Kohli
Australia has always been a happy hunting ground for Virat Kohli. The kind of fight that Kohli had brought in the Indian team was something that the Australian team might have never thought about. Kohli was crowned the Test captain during the 2014-15 Border-Gavaskar Trophy series and the fire which he showed 'Down Under' threw the Aussies off the charts. In his first series as the captain of the Indian Test team Kohli scored 692 runs from 4 matches and 8 innings at an average of 86.50. The then Indian Test captain had also scored 4 hundreds from eight innings.
Kohli not only ended up scoring 282 runs in the series, but he also became the first Indian captain to win a Test series against Australia in Australia. Before the start of the 2018 Border-Gavaskar Trophy series, Cricket Australia put out a video of an in form Virat Kohli striking deliveries for fun in the nets. By then Tim Paine had already become the Australian captain and by his own admission, he had no way in which he felt his team could get Kohli out.
As Virat hangs up his boots from Test cricket, the BCCI and the Indian team will be under the pump to find someone who can stand up to his stature and fill in his shoes that he has left behind. But for the monent, we won't hear the chants of 'Kohli Kohli', when India take the field in their prestigious baggy green and Test whites.
Published 12 May 2025 at 15:22 IST