Mike Atherton: Where Virat Kohli ranks among the greats, and what brought about his undoing

Virat Kohli’s Test retirement signals the end of an era in Indian cricket. But while he remains one of the most influential players of MIKE ATHERTON’s lifetime, he sits outside the best of the best in the modern game.

Farewell then to Test cricket for one of the best, most charismatic and influential players of my lifetime. Virat Kohli’s retirement from the five-day game was anticipated, with reports emanating from India about his intentions late last week, but that does not lessen the magnitude of the moment: the going of a figure who continued to hold Test cricket dearest of all, and to fight his country’s corner with relentless determination and pride, signals the end of an era in Indian cricket.

That he was a passionate advocate of Test cricket was clear from his retirement statement. Only days earlier, Rohit Sharma had taken his leave with a cheery but perfunctory goodbye, while Kohli’s was more personal, heartfelt and, in its way, more telling.

“Test cricket,” he said, has “tested me, shaped me and taught me lessons I’ll carry for life,” referencing the “quiet grind, the long days, the small moments”. If you know, you know.

These are not glib words, designed to put a final gloss on a superb Test career, but deeply felt.

No one who has watched Kohli since his debut in Kingston, Jamaica, in 2011 could doubt that he has put his heart and soul into it – not only into the glitz and glamour of the Indian Premier League or World Cups for his country, but also into those less illuminated moments in Test cricket, when the game is drifting, the shadows lengthening and thoughts turning to evening rest. He brought all his energy and attention to bear on every moment of his 123 Tests. He gave it everything.

As a batsman, and captain, he has been an outstanding Test cricketer. He falls shy of two markers – 10,000 runs and an average of 50 – that elevate the best of the best in the modern game, but 9,230 runs at an average of 46.85 and 30 hundreds places him in elite company. More than that, he was an immensely watchable batsman, crisp of footwork and a touch player in a muscular era, good against high pace – as seven hundreds in Australia attest – and spin, with some of his 14 home hundreds made on the rankest of turners.

He came to an accommodation with English conditions, too, scoring two Test hundreds here in a brilliant series in 2018 and enjoying some fine, ding-dong battles with James Anderson along the way. There is a photograph of them both grinning to each other the last time they walked off the field together in England, at Edgbaston in 2022. Kohli has just said to Anderson that it had been a pleasure to have one final battle out in the middle. “Why, are you retiring?” quipped Anderson, unwilling still to make the assumption that Kohli made on that occasion.

Failure is a fact of life for most athletes, even the best, and Kohli’s first tour here in 2014 brought exactly that. But knowing that Test cricketers are judged in the round and in all conditions – favourable and unfavourable, familiar and unfamiliar – he knuckled down, changed his technique and approach around off stump, tackling “the channel of uncertainty” with monastic discipline, and bounced back on the following tour four years later, with 593 runs at an average just shy of 60. He was not afraid of the hard graft.

Virat Kohli and James Anderson enjoyed many fine battles. Picture: Gareth Copley/Getty Images

The past five years, though, have brought a significant drop-off in form. Since the start of 2020, he has averaged only 31 in 39 Tests with three hundreds, declining while, for example, a contemporary like Joe Root has continued to rise and improve. Why the decline? Any number of factors possibly – age (he is 36), time of life, family, post-captaincy blues – but my guess is that zealous and intense commitment in the earlier part of his career took its toll and that a slight mental weariness took hold, dulling a little of his edge. Few know what it is like to play in the goldfish bowl of Indian cricket for so long. The time had come.

As captain, between December 2014 and January 2022, he fizzed around, full of energy, ideas and inspiration. Perhaps the best appreciation is to contrast his leadership with what came before and after him. MS Dhoni, his predecessor, could be catatonically laid back, as could Sharma, his successor, but Kohli was a fierce, demanding and in-your-face kind of captain. He gelled especially well with Ravi Shastri, head coach for a period during Kohli’s tenure.

Virat Kohli’s form dropped off significantly after 2020. Picture: Cameron Spencer/Getty Images

Shastri told me in an interview last year that he identified “an uncut diamond” in Kohli and readied him for the top job. “I told him [Kohli] very early: watch, observe and be ready for it,” Shastri said. “Kohli was fully engaged with Test cricket. He was passionate. He was prepared to do the hard yards and was prepared to play tough cricket, which fitted my way of thinking.

“You have got to have a ‘no complaints, no excuses’ attitude. We were on the same page and wanted a battery of fast bowlers. He was ready for a scrap. He wanted to play hard. We made it a free-for-all in the nets. You were allowed to bounce the shit out of anyone. He was the first guy to embrace it. He was quite prepared to look ugly in the nets and the mindset changed.” Shastri was full of admiration for a kindred spirit.

As a result, Kohli led his country to 40 wins in his 68 matches in charge, by far the most (Dhoni, next best, won 27 matches) for a captain of India, transforming the team and expectations of it along the way. Sachin Tendulkar, by contrast, won four matches in 25 as captain. Kohli led India to their first series win in Australia, a high point of his tenure in a country that seemed to bring the best out of him: it was a meeting of like-minded spirits, with no quarter asked nor given.

Shastri is right that Kohli helped change the nature of the way India played its cricket, with its battery of fast bowlers, aggressive batsmen and athletic fielders. Of course, T20 helped push the game in a more athletic direction, too, but Kohli’s dedication to diet, fitness and training helped promote the shift. Kohli leaves the stage chiselled and sharp and still among the fittest of his generation.

Kindred spirits, Ravi Shastri and Virat Kohli. Picture: Norman Kochannek

As his influence grew, so did India’s. When Niccolo Campriani, the sporting director of the 2028 LA Games, announced cricket’s entry into the Olympics in 2023, he did so referencing Kohli’s social media reach, which, he said, was more than Tiger Woods, LeBron James and Tom Brady combined. The Olympics needed cricket, and specifically Indian cricket, more than cricket needed the Olympics. Kohli became the wealthiest and most followed cricketer of his generation.

More than anything, Kohli had great presence as a cricketer; you could not take your eyes off him. He was one of the four most charismatic cricketers I have seen, alongside Viv Richards, Imran Khan and Shane Warne. He was sometimes no angel, of course, as the shoulder bump on young Sam Konstas in the last year’s Boxing Day Test would concede, and he could be petulant and short-tempered, but the ledger is very much in his favour. The game has been enriched by his presence.

Officialdom tried to talk Kohli out of retirement – India hoped he might stay for the five-match series in England that begins in June – but, not being a cricketer of half-measures, his mind was set. With the retirement of Ravichandran Ashwin last winter and Sharma a short while ago, Kohli’s exit from Test cricket heralds a moment when India will have to begin to reshape their Test team again. It is to be hoped they find players who are as watchable and as good as Kohli, but also who cherish the graft and grind of Test cricket just as dearly. In this day and age, that combination may be hard to find.

Originally published as Mike Atherton: Where Virat Kohli ranks among the greats, and what brought about his undoing