Early-morning texts (depending on one’s definition of ‘early morning’, of course) seldom bring glad tidings. So, when the phone chirped reasonably early (let’s say before 8.00 AM) on Friday, it was with reasonably baleful reluctance that one reached out to be greeted by ‘Virat likely to retire from Tests.’
The first reaction was, ‘Oh no, not him too.’ The cricketing landscape was just about recovering from Rohit Sharma’s Test retirement, less than 48 hours previously. How could India lose both their immediate Test captains in one fell swoop? Especially with a demanding, challenging, arduous, extended five-Test tour of England not far away?
Retirement, as we have maintained all along, is an entirely personal call. Every sportsperson knows when it’s time to go – the popular refrain is that players should call it quits with people asking ‘Why’ rather than ‘When’ – and if Kohli has indeed informed the Board of Control for Cricket in India of his desire to pull the plug on his Test career, it must be respected. But ‘Why now, Virat?’ is an inevitable question, especially given the wonderful form he has struck in the immediacy of the largely forgettable not-so-recent tour of Australia.
A second-innings hundred in the first-Test victory in Perth seemed to suggest that Kohli would extend his liking for Australia and the Australian bowling, but that turned out to be a false dawn. Despite his unbeaten 100 at the Optus, he mustered a meagre 190 runs from nine innings (average 23.75) and was dismissed caught behind the stumps, feeling for deliveries outside off, on all eight occasions. But even when the runs weren’t coming, you could see the hunger, the willingness to work his backside off, the steely determination, a desperation almost.
Kohli was often first to hit the nets, spending long hours at practice though he had little to show when it came to the crunch. It is being suggested that at the end of the series, he told his mates that he was ‘done’ with Tests, but two match-winning chases at the Champions Trophy (against Pakistan and in the semis against Australia), backed up by another stirring run for Royal Challengers Bengaluru until IPL 2025 was temporarily suspended, were seen as proof that he had retained his mojo and fire while rediscovering run-making ways.
All good things in life must come to an end and if not now, Kohli will eventually retire from Test cricket at some stage in the near future. But is there a case for him to be convinced to reconsider his decision, as the BCCI is said to have asked him to? Most certainly.
The last time the Indian board and its decision-making stakeholders attempted to talk a player out of Test retirement was in August 2012, when VVS Laxman pulled the plug on his Test career after being named to play in the two-match home series against New Zealand. Rahul Dravid had called it quits a few months previously, after a tour of Australia where neither he nor Laxman had outings to remember. A concerted effort to get the Hyderabadi to change his mind by, among others, selection panel chairman K Srikkanth and BCCI president N Srinivasan, came to nought as Laxman stuck to his conviction.
Whether Kohli follows in Laxman’s footsteps or rescinds his decision – all this, assuming that he has expressed his desire to retire – remains to be seen. Perhaps, a little nudge from a certain Sachin Tendulkar might do the trick because if there is one individual Kohli idolises more than anyone else, it is the little genius from Mumbai.
Tendulkar himself had seriously contemplated walking away from the game in the aftermath of India’s first-round elimination from the 50-over World Cup in the Caribbean when he made only 64 runs from three matches. There was a sense of distrust and a distinct lack of morale in the team, which further weighed the little master down, until a phone call from the original king, Viv Richards, did the trick.
“I got a call from Sir Viv, saying I know that there is plenty of cricket left in you,” Tendulkar revealed to India Today, some six years back. “We had a conversation for about 45 minutes and that was so heartwarming because when your batting hero calls you, it means a lot. That was the moment things changed for me.”
That Tendulkar is Kohli’s batting hero is hardly a secret. In the past, and specifically, after the disastrous England tour in 2014 when he made only 134 runs from 10 Test innings, Kohli has sought out the older man for guidance, technical and mental. His famous lines when he hoisted Tendulkar after the 2011 World Cup triumph – ‘He has carried the burden of the nation for 21 years. It is time we carried him on our shoulders.’ – are still fresh in memory. Maybe, a call from Tendulkar, then? And younger, fresher shoulders to carry Kohli?
