Virat Kohli in 'no mood' to retire, but selectors face tough call on his place in Indian Test side

Irfan Pathan is only one of the many former cricketers and fans who have questioned the future of Virat Kohli in the Indian cricket team after a horror show in Australia. Kohli scored just 190 runs in nine innings including a 100 not out in Perth as India lost 3-1 to Australia in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. The most disappointing fact about the champion batter’s form has been that he was caught behind eight out of eight times in the recently-concluded series .

India’s next Test match is against England in June 2025 and experts feel that the time has come to move on from the 36-year-old who will be nearing 37 when the next five-day match comes, but a report in news agency PTI states that the star batter is in “no mood” to retire from international cricket and “wants to play for India” till the 2027 ODI World Cup.

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Can Kohli be picked for Tests without playing domestic cricket?

This raises a second question: can he be picked for England Tests based on his performance in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy?

Six months is a long time but regardless of the form in other formats and competitions, the Test team would have to be picked on either Test form or performance in domestic cricket.

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“It would be very hard for selectors to pick either Rohit Sharma or Virat Kohli on the basis of IPL performance or form. Their has to be some red-ball cricket for them in lead-up to England tour. Else you can’t justify their selections,” a former selector told PTI.

The interesting bit here is that Kohli doesn’t take part in domestic cricket either. Kohli last played a Ranji Trophy match in 2012 .

However, he will have an opportunity in January when the Ranji Trophy resumes from 23. Delhi will be facing Saurashtra from 23-26 January in an away game in Rajkot before taking on Railways from 30 January to 2 February.

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The other option that Kohli has is to skip the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 and play county cricket in England but there are speculations that he may captain Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) in the coming season.

This leaves Kohli with the only option, which is to play for India A side in England before the tour starts.

Kohli playing in the Ranji Trophy and for India A, however, will be unprecedented in many ways and looks highly unlikely. In which case it will be interesting to see what the selectors do when the time comes to pick the squad for England Tests.