 "Ex-England cricketer feels off-stump woes led to Virat Kohli's Test retirement: 'He probably hasn't worked out solutions...'")
Former England spinner Monty Panesar has dropped a bombshell on Virat Kohli’s recent Test retirement, suggesting that Indian batting superstar’s lack of solutions for his weakness outside the off side might have led him to quitting the format altogether.
Kohli had taken the cricket world by surprise by announcing his retirement from Test cricket on 12 May , less than a week after a similar announcement from captain Rohit Sharma, both stalwarts having last played the format in the tour of Australia from November to January. Their announcements came over a month before India’s five-match Test series against England, which gets underway at Headingley, Leeds from 20 June.
Also Read | 'I think he’ll come out of retirement': Ex-Australia captain makes big prediction about Kohli
And one of the key talking points in the five-match series for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, which Australia ended up regaining after eight years with a 3-1 series victory, was Kohli’s weakness outside the off stump and how the Australian pacers, especially Scott Boland and captain Pat Cummins, exploited it to the home team’s advantage.
It was the same weakness that had affected him during a forgettable trip to England 11 years ago, with the English pacers – especially the legendary James Anderson – consistently getting him to nick the ball along the channel outside the off stump, mostly resulting in a catch to the wicketkeeper or in the slip cordon.
“With Kohli, what has happened is that against the ball outside the off stump, the fifth stump line, especially in Australia on fast bouncy pitches he was struggling,” the left-arm spinner, who had starred in England’s famous victory in India in 2012, told news agency Press Trust of India.
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More Shorts“So he probably thought maybe the fact that in England it is going to swing a lot more, he probably hasn’t worked out solutions in that corridor of uncertainty. And I think that’s probably been one of the reasons why he thought to retire and put all his energy with RCB and ODI cricket for India,” he added.
Would be a lot tougher for Kohli to pull off an encore of 2018, feels Panesar
Kohli appeared to have buried the ghosts of 2014 with a superb run in India’s next tour of England four years later, in which he finished as the leading run-scorer with 593 runs at an average of 59.30, scoring a superb 149 in the series opener in Edgbaston and 103 in the third Test at Trent Bridge.
Also Read | Virat Kohli: An extraordinary batter, an even greater captain who elevated Test cricket
Panesar, however, felt that while he did bounce back at the prime of his career, he would find it a lot tougher at the twilight of his career.
“I think he’s done very well as a cricketer in all formats. He has been a brilliant ambassador for Test cricket. He probably feels that he’s done his best, he’s achieved everything and probably feels like it’s time for the youngsters to step up.
“It would a lot tougher for Kohli to repeat the same performances in 2018. Just simple fact that he’s been struggling over the last 12 to 18 months with that ball outside off stump. He hasn’t got a solution for that, you know problem that he has on fourth and fifth stump.
“So he’s thinking it’s better for Indian cricket to give youngsters a go and hopefully find the next superstar,” added Panesar, who is commentating on the Saurashtra Pro T20 League.
India have since appointed Shubman Gill as full-time Test captain following Rohit and Kohli’s retirement, and have also included fresh faces in the squad for the England Tests including Tamil Nadu and Gujarat Titans opener Sai Sudharsan, who had been among the runs in domestic cricket and had recently won the ‘Orange Cap’ in the 18th season of the Indian Premier League.
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