Virat Kohli: A Career Unforgettable—and Unfulfilled
Despite an incomplete end to a promising career, Indian cricket will remain indebted to Virat Kohli for revolutionizing the Test game, leading the national team through tough transitional phases, and becoming one of the best batsmen the country ever produced.
Timing, they say, is everything. In cricket—as with all elite sport—timing is what ultimately defines you. Virat Kohli made a stellar career out of timing the cricket ball with rare precision, redefining his own game, the standard of modern-day batting in Test and ODI cricket, and taking his popularity to unprecedented territory.
Cruelly, once that timing began to dwindle, it resulted in an alarming dip in Test form. After years of speculation, Kohli took the painstakingly difficult decision in mid-May to walk away from the format he loved most, and the one to which he gave his all. Kohli’s decided to retire ahead of a new World Test Championship (WTC) cycle starting in the third week of June, with five Test matches against in England. His decision came after 123 Tests from which he scored 9320 runs at an average of 46.85 with 30 hundreds, to place him at fourth on India’s all-time list of run scorers in Tests.
While the announcement caught most of the cricket world—and especially Indian cricket fans—by surprise, it’s a decision that I personally saw coming. Over the last five years—a period that spanned about a third of his Test career—Kohli struggled mightily, averaging just over 30 with only three centuries. During the last Border-Gavaskar Trophy in Australia, all nine of his dismissals were to deliveries pitching outside of off stump, and taking the edge to be caught by the wicketkeeper, in the slips, or by the fielder at gully. It was a problem that he trained hard to rectify; but to me, it seemed that these issues had gotten out of Kohli’s control. Apart from getting his 30th hundred in the first Test, he averaged only around 23 for the rest of the series, without getting to a single half-century. This outing was particularly disappointing in Australia, where his record (out of India) has historically been extraordinary.
This is a champion cricketer, who broke every misconception, who worked his rear-end off to raise himself to this level, who redefined Test Cricket, who made the format cool and sexy, and who drew viewers back to the format in an era where the average fan was gravitating more towards T20. At the height of his powers between 2015-2020, he averaged in excess of 90, with a record six double centuries. He stands as India’s most successful test captain.
And so, to see a man of that standard struggle, and not seem to find any solution to getting out his problems against spin, led me to believe that decision was one he’d been mulling for some time. There are plenty of reports claiming that the BCCI tried to convince him to go to England for the tour this summer, as India had already lost high-stature players like Ravichandran Ashwin and Rohit Sharma to recent retirements. But, after a prolonged slump of form, Kohli perhaps knew of his past struggles to score in Test outings in England, and likely mulled over his numbers falling and records being further tarnished in the coming series. Since it came into effect in 2019, the WTC is a two-year cycle which puts a premium on teams needing field a consistent squad to play together to get points: I have absolutely no issue with that Kohli, or even the BCCI, who presumed that he wouldn’t be in for the whole two-year haul.
Despite the dip in form, Kohli continued to play with great passion till the end. It was clear that Test Cricket meant the most to him (and this is a man, mind you, with 50 one-day centuries, more than Sachin Tendulkar). The way Kohli played Test Cricket—the way he overcame his weaknesses, his deficiencies, the way he rallied his team, abrasive and in-your-face—was, in many ways, a very Australian way of doing things. For Indian fans to watch one of their own give it back to Australians and Brits and South Africans, and actually go and win Test series abroad, was special.
Without a doubt, India became a better traveling Test team under Kohli. The only Asian team to win Test series in Australia has been Indian, with the first such win coming under Kohli’s captaincy. In 2021, Kohli led the team back to Australia as captain, but after the debacle of 36 all out at Adelaide Oval, he returned to be with his family for the birth of his first child. In his stead, Ajinkya Rahane captained India to arguably the greatest overseas Test win—but one could see the Kohli imprint on all these Test teams, these Test wins.
The focus on playing five bowlers, and at times four fast bowlers if required, was an un-Indian way of doing things. But India’s pacers peaked under Kohli’s tenure as captain, and indeed this was a big factor in Kohli’s men becoming a better travelers. Credit here is also due to the then coach (Ravi Shastri) and bowling coach (Bharat Arun) for buying into Kohli’s belief and ensuring the process was followed. To see those three men operate in tandem was captivating, as their sole goal was to win more Test matches overseas, and get India a steady supply stream of potent fast bowlers to take 20 wickets each time. A lot of that credit, I believe, should go to Kohli because of his aggressive mindset.
Beyond the runs and the records, the double centuries, the personal achievements, and the high standard of Test wins, one of his biggest contributions to Indian cricket has been a focus on fitness across three formats. Kohli has been the fittest cricketer of this era, a man who inspired his teammates to become fitter, too. This discipline has had a big role to play in the success of the batsmen, bowlers, fielders, and as a consequence, of the entire team.
I remember Kohli’s first few Tests in England in 2014, when he only averaged around 11 or 12. He was a broken man, and he spoke about how that was the most haunting, most draining passage of his career. But he sought out his batting coach. He sought out the right people (including Lalchand Rajput) and he improved. For the next four or five years, his average skyrocketed. The centuries and double centuries flowed in. Before the onset of COVID in 2020, it looked like this was a man who was easily going to reach up to 12,000 or 13,000 runs.
This is a champion cricketer, who broke every misconception, who worked his rear-end off to raise himself to this level, who redefined Test Cricket, who made the format cool and sexy, and who drew viewers back to the format in an era where the average fan was gravitating more towards T20.
But it didn't happen, and it will be one of the strangest downfalls of one of the greatest cricketers India has ever produced.
When we look back at Kohli’s career, I will say it’s one unfulfilled. He was a batsman who promised so much, who captivated the world whenever he played Tests cricket. Unfortunately, he couldn’t cross the 10,000-run threshold—the number that, for decades, has been seen as the benchmark for the very best. There are, of course, many other great players in the game who never got to 10,000—like Viv Richards, for example, but that was a different era. Kohli leaves the game at an impressive 9322 runs: somewhere the cup is half full or half empty, depending on how you see it.
Kohli was once the boss of the current ‘Fab Four’ of his era, a list of batsmen that include Steve Smith, Kane Williamson, Joe Root, and himself. Now with his retirement, Kohli is fourth in this list, with the fewest runs, the least number of centuries, and the lowest average.
So, the signs of decline have been there. It’s a sad way for him to go and I personally feel he should have achieved a lot more. But who knows what the reasons were? There was the pandemic, there was fatherhood. Priorities tend to change and family takes preference. The reflexes start to dull. You try, you slog your butt off, but you don’t get the results out in the middle on the 22 yards on the pitch.
9322 runs is a career unfulfilled, but that’s still a hell of a lot of runs. Indian cricket will remain indebted to Kohli for revolutionizing the Test game and leading the team to transition twice through tough phases.
After Sachin Tendulkar, Virat Kohli was probably the biggest unifying factor for the country, given the changing landscape of India as a nation and our financial might. He took on a lot more responsibility and he had to deal with a many more very different personalities.
And after Tendulkar, this is India’s greatest Test batsman in so many ways, despite falling short of 10,000. His decision to leave may have come to many as a shock, but it’s one that all the fans and stakeholders of Indian cricket must respect, and thank Kohli for all he had done for the sport.
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Jamie Alter is a sports writer and journalist in the digital world, having covered cricket around the world including three World Cups. After nearly five years working for ESPNcricinfo, Jamie served as Sports Editor of the Times of India Digital, Cricbuzz, Cricketnext and most recently as Group Sports Editor (Digital) at Zee Media. He also also authored two cricket-related books and dabbled in acting. You can find him on Twitter: @alter_jamie.
