Virat Kohli retires from Test cricket: Was the Indian batting star forced out of the red-ball format?

Indian batting star Virat Kohli took the cricketing world by surprise on Monday by announcing his retirement from the Test format more than a month before the five-match series against England. Kohli dropped the bombshell announcement in a post on Instagram that has since garnered 16 million likes and more than a million comments, joining fellow modern-day great Rohit Sharma in bidding the five-day game goodbye.

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There is, however, more than meets the eye when it comes to Kohli’s Test retirement – which led to an outpouring of tributes on social media , from his idol Sachin Tendulkar and other legends of the game to sporting icons from outside cricket including Novak Djokovic and Conor McGregor.

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Kohli, after all, was expected to continue playing an important role for India at the No 4 spot in the Test batting order and guide the team with his experience even as Rohit’s days in whites appeared well and truly over after his poor run in the home series against New Zealand as well as in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in Australia – where he scored just 31 runs at an average of 6.20 and suffered two defeats along with a draw as captain.

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Kohli, who had scored an unbeaten 100 in the first Test against Australia in Perth only to struggle in the remainder of the series, had also played a Ranji Trophy match for Delhi against Railways at the Arun Jaitley Stadium, his home ground, in January, indicating he was serious about his Test future.

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Uncertainty over dealing with Gambhir to blame for Kohli’s sudden retirement?

According to cricket website Cricblogger, Kohli’s inability to be on the same page as head coach Gautam Gambhir – an individual he has had multiple run-ins with in the past even though the two appeared to have patched up over the past one year – might have something to do with the landmark announcement.

The report quotes sources as saying that Kohli became apprehensive about his place in the Test team after watching the treatment meted out to a senior figure like Rohit in the Australia tour, where coach Gambhir refused to confirm the captain’s place in the XI ahead of the fifth Test in Sydney.

The report also adds that Kohli did not want to be seen as playing at Gambhir’s mercy till the time the former India opener was in charge of the team. Gambhir reportedly had offered Kohli Test captaincy in place of Rohit with chief selector Ajit Agarkar discussing his future in the format around the same time, which might have set off the alarm bells in his mind.

And while the BCCI was reported to have reached out to Kohli to reconsider his decision to quitting Test cricket, a report on Dainik Jagran claimed that the 36-year-old, who retires from the format with 9,230 runs from 123 Tests at an average of 46.85, no longer had the No 4 spot locked in his favour in the Test team due to a prolonged lean patch.

The report adds that a similar message was sent to Rohit, who bid the format goodbye with 4,301 runs from 67 matches.

Team India thus will begin a new era in the five-Test series against England, which gets underway at Headingley in Leeds from 20 June. While Jasprit Bumrah had been seen as Rohit’s successor when it came to leading the team in the Test format, his recent back injury and discussions on workload management have made top-order batter Shubman Gill the front-runner to take charge of the side.