Sanjay Manjrekar On Virat Kohli’s Test Retirement: Sanjay Manjrekar has expressed his disappointment over Virat Kohli’s decision to take retirement from Test cricket and continue playing ODIs. He has said that he is saddened to know that while players like Joe Root and Steve Smith are continuously scoring runs for their teams, India’s greatest red-ball captain has decided to say ‘goodbye’ instead of working on his problem.
Virat Kohli retired from Test cricket in the year 2025 after a failed Test series in Australia, where he scored only 194 runs in 10 innings, of which 100 runs came in one innings of the Perth Test. This decision was shocking for everyone, considering how much he loved this format.
Despite being in the ‘Fab Four’, Virat Kohli, the living icon of Test cricket, retired after scoring 9230 runs in 123 matches at an average of 46.85. The fact that at the beginning of his career, Kohli considered completing 10,000 runs in Test cricket as one of his biggest targets, but he could not accomplish it, hurts the most. Although Kohli still keeps scoring runs in ODIs, Manjrekar is not in favor of giving more priority to 50-over cricket than Tests.
Sanjay Manjrekar said on his Instagram handle, ‘Well, as Joe Root is touching new heights in Test cricket, my attention shifts towards Virat Kohli. He has taken a step back from Test cricket, and it is unfortunate that in those 5 years that he struggled, he did not put his heart and soul into finding out why his average in Tests remained 31 for 5 years. It is a matter of later time what he could have done. But I’m just sad to see that people like Joe Root, Steve Smith, Kane Williamson are really making a name for themselves in Test cricket.
Manjrekar said, ‘It would have been better if Virat Kohli had just walked away from cricket, everyone would have retired from cricket. But the fact that he has chosen to play ODI cricket actually disappoints me more because it is a format which, as I have said earlier, is the easiest format for a top-order batsman.
Between 2020 and 2025, Kohli’s troubles in Test cricket are no longer a secret. Before the Covid-19 pandemic, Kohli’s average, which was averaging 50 runs in all formats, fell significantly as we had gone almost 3 years without seeing a single century. But the fact that hurt Manjrekar the most was that Kohli never worked on his weakness, i.e. against balls outside the off-stump, on which he kept getting out again and again. In his last series Down Under, all 9 dismissals happened for the same reason.
Kohli, once the leader of the Fab Four, slipped late and never got a chance to regain ground, while Root, Smith and Williamson continued to dictate the game with record-breaking innings and centuries. Keep this in mind: Root recently scored his 41st Test century and is closing in on Sachin Tendulkar’s record for the highest Test run scorer in history. Smith is continuously working hard in the current Ashes. Kohli, meanwhile, holds the title of ‘former Test player’.
Yes, Kohli is back to his best form in ODI, recently he scored 302 runs in 3 matches against South Africa and before that he played an unbeaten inning of 74 runs in Australia. But it doesn’t match the thrill of Test cricket, nor can it compare to the legacy that Kohli created for himself in the Whites.
Manjrekar said, ‘The format that really tests you is Test cricket, and T20 cricket has its own challenges. The other thing is that because he is so fit, so fit, you feel even more that maybe if he had continued to try to make a comeback, you know, to get back to his form, even if he was kept out of a series, he probably could have got into first-class cricket, played in Australia, England, played more matches in India, and tried to make another comeback.
Manjrekar finally said, ‘This could have made me really happy. Obviously, this is his decision, his choice. But yes, when Joe Root scores hundreds of runs or Steve Smith, Kane Williamson, my attention goes towards Virat Kohli, I feel a bit disappointed and a bit sad, because he cared a lot about Test cricket, didn’t he?
The post ‘Virat Kohli chose to say goodbye to Test instead of improving his weakness’, this Indian legend is disappointed over giving preference to ODI appeared first on obnews.
