Virat Kohli Retired From Test Cricket After His Numbers Nosedived

Test matches often provide some of the greatest and dramatic memories in cricket. However, the last five days have been more traumatic for Indian fans of the global game. Skipper Rohit Sharma announced he was retiring from Tests on Wednesday, the IPL was suspended due to India-Pakistan tensions on Friday, and after a weekend of reports that he’s going, he’s going, Virat Kohli banged the gong on the red-ball game with immediate effect on Monday.

Kohli, who led the Test team to 40 victories out of 68 from 2014 to 2022 before Rohit took over the reins, apparently told chief selector Agit Agarkar of his plans in April. Despite claims that the BCCI were trying to convince the most Googled cricketer in the world to change his mind for one last hurrah, the 36-year-old was not for turning. England might collectively sigh with relief, but brand Kohli won’t be having a summer ball.

Kohli won the Orange Cap at the IPL in 2024 after scoring 741 in 15 innings for Royal Challengers Bengaluru. He is also among the leading lights in the race for 2025, with over 500 runs as his team sits second at the top of the richest cricket franchise league in the world. Life with the white ball has been white-hot for Kohli, although he retired from T20s alongside Rohit after securing India’s first ICC trophy for 11 years in Barbados last June.

Over the last 28 IPL innings, Kohli boasts an incredible aggregate of 1447 runs at an average of just under 70 with a strike rate of 151. In ODIs, he averages almost 58, having been the biggest run scorer at the World Cup in 2023. His mastery of light and shade, defense and attack will continue on the 50-over international stage.

In the turf wars of Test cricket, his average has been just over 30 since 2020. The elephant in the room has stampeded over his previously sultry figure of nearly 55. At the end of a 3-1 loss in the Border-Gavaskar series against Australia, Kohli’s Test batting numbers dipped below 47 for the first time in eight years. That’s where it will stay after 123 games and 31 hundreds.

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"There’s something deeply personal about playing in whites. The quiet grind, the long days, the small moments that no-one sees but that stay with you forever," Kohli thoughtfully shared in a statement on social media.

Kohli has become increasingly vulnerable to the ball outside off stump in the longer format. There’s been a nervousness, a (literal) edginess that crept in. After stroking a century at Perth in November as India captured the first Test, the legendary batsman then succumbed to uncertainty and the relentless probing of Pat Cummins’ team, scoring only 104 more runs in the next seven innings.

Kohli’s recent Test series have followed a pattern of one main score mixed in with several single-figure or modest contributions. There was a 70 against New Zealand in the disastrous three-nil whitewash, but not much else. There was a 186 on a dead track in Ahmedabad against the Australians at home in the fourth and final Test in 2023, but nothing of consequence in the main chapters of the contest beforehand.

The last time Kohli had an IPL flourish in his Test match batting was back in 2018 when he held the number one ranking for the entire year. He scored 593 runs in five Tests against England, including centuries at Edgbaston and Trent Bridge.

The runs were flowing, the class was showing, and Kohli captained his country to an epic 2-1 win over Australia down under to cap off three glorious years (he was Wisden’s leading Cricketer between 2017-19). He looked like a million dollars every time he went to the crease and Test cricket will miss the theater of its classic conductor.

Kohli hasn’t managed another hundred against England home or away in the next ten Test matches against them, with a highest score of 72. While he has risen to the occasion at the World Cup, the T20 World Cup and the recent Champions Trophy. where he finished fifth in the batting averages, Test match consistency has proved to be elusive against the familiar enemies of the Big Three.

"I have not been disciplined enough to stick in there and really grind it out. That is the challenge Test cricket brings," Kohli told Fox Sports before the start of the Boxing Day Test which showed agonising glimpses of the original master craftsman at work.

He had reached 36, leaving a big majority of balls that were tempters. Steve Smith, who knows a thing or two about big hundreds, thought it was going to be a “masterclass”. Inexplicably, Kohli was unsettled by the dismissal of young opener Jaiswal and poked at one to nick behind. It’s what happens now. A kink in the king’s mechanics has been dissected by speedsters and seam bowlers on a regular basis.

England is the country that made him a real Test match player in many ways after a miserable tour in 2014 when he scored only 134 runs in ten innings. He refined his technique, mindset and shot collection to make the jump into superstardom.

Kohli works harder when he fails. He finds answers. He delivers in finals. His wicket is still cherished in Tests despite everything. But those statistics can damn and drain. “As long as they are performing, they deserve to be in the team,” Indian coach Gautam Gambhir said of Kohli and skipper Rohit just a few days ago. They weren’t performing and now that touch of stardust will be missed at Headingley on June 20.