Indian batter Virat Kohli has announced his retirement from Test cricket through an Instagram post. His performance in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy (BGT) was not up to the mark, with an average of just 23.75. In this series, he was dismissed 7 times out of 8 innings by balls outside the off-stump. In the BGT, Kohli scored 190 runs in 9 innings, including one unbeaten century.
In the past five years, he has scored only 3 centuries in 37 Tests, with an average below 35. Earlier, Kohli had also retired from T20 cricket, but he has been in stellar form in IPL 2025, amassing 505 runs in 11 matches.
Before making his decision, Kohli had expressed his wish to retire from Test cricket to the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), who asked him to reconsider. Kohli made his retirement official after winning the 2024 T20 World Cup.
Kohli has been a better Test captain than both Rohit Sharma and MS Dhoni. While Rohit and Dhoni have led India to ICC trophies, Kohli never won an ICC tournament as captain. However, in Test cricket, Kohli stands far ahead of both Dhoni and Rohit as a leader.
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Under Kohli’s leadership, India won all 11 home Test series. In contrast, both Dhoni and Rohit experienced defeats in home series, with Rohit’s team even suffering a clean sweep by New Zealand. Kohli’s team, however, never lost a Test series at home. Kohli led India to victory in all 11 Test series on Indian soil. His first home Test series as captain was in 2015 against South Africa, where India won the 4-match series 3-0, supported by Ashwin and Jadeja’s performances and Kohli’s aggressive fielding strategy.
Kohli also set a record for scoring 7 double centuries as captain. Though Kohli has performed well under all captains, he turned his Test batting weaknesses into achievements as captain. His leadership saw him score a remarkable 7 double centuries. Despite struggling on the England tour in 2014, Kohli bounced back in 2018, finishing as the top run-scorer of the series. In Australia, he consistently scored runs, and in South Africa, he scored a century to prove why ICC named him the best cricketer of the decade in 2020.