Left shell-shocked at the sudden announcement of Kohli’s Test retirement, says R Sridhar

New Delhi, May 14 (IANS) R Sridhar, the former India men’s team fielding coach, said he was left shell-shocked over Virat Kohli suddenly announcing his retirement from Test cricket. Sridhar added that he was fortunate to have been in the national set-up when Kohli was India’s Test captain from 2015 to 2021, and eventually became the country’s most successful captain in the longer format.

In an Instagram post on Monday, Kohli announced that he will be retiring from Tests with immediate effect, ending a 14-year career worth 9,230 runs in 123 matches at an average of 46.85, including hitting 30 hundreds and 31 fifties with a highest score of 254 not out.

“Who can forget that famous quote which he said at the Lords, ‘Let’s give them 60 hours of hell’. I am shell-shocked at the sudden announcement of Test retirement by Virat Kohli to be very honest.

“I’ve been very fortunate to be there entirely throughout his captaincy tenure, and what I saw was nothing but passion, persistence, the will to win, the honesty and the fearlessness with which he took Indian cricket forward,” said Sridhar in a video posted on Coaching Beyond’s Instagram account on Wednesday.

Under Kohli’s leadership, India’s record was 40 wins and 17 defeats in 68 matches, and included the side’s first-ever Test series win in Australia in 2018/19. After the 2-1 series defeat in South Africa, Kohli stepped down as the Test skipper in early 2022.

In the last few years, Kohli had struggled to make consistent runs in Tests, as seen from him making only 190 runs in nine innings of the 2024/25 Border-Gavaskar Trophy series, which India lost 3-1. Sridhar, currently leading a ten-day fielding camp for the Sri Lanka national teams in Colombo, further said Kohli’s retirement from the format is a huge loss for the side, who have a five-match tour of England coming up from June 20.

“About his captaincy, I think his intensity, his aggression and his ability to use fast bowlers to great effect. Since he took over the captaincy in 2015, I’m very grateful that I was witnessing it from close quarters. The way he changed the culture with fitness and fielding, the way he changed the culture – going with five bowlers and the batters taking a lot of responsibility – and he did it himself time and again.

“Thereafter, India has never looked back as a Test-playing nation. Learning what the young cricketers had while he was there in the change room is something that cannot be substituted with anything. So I think it’s a huge loss for Indian cricket with him not being around. I am shocked. I hope his legacy lives on forever,” he concluded.

–IANS

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