Virat Kohli Retires from Test Cricket After 14-Year Career: ‘269 Signing Off’

Virat Kohli Retires from Test Cricket After 14-Year Career: Virat Kohli, the former India cricketer, had announced his retirement from Test cricket as the announcement comes with only a month and a half to go before the England tour. Kohli, 36, made the announcement days after Indian cricketer Rohit Sharma said goodbye to Test cricket. The announcement on Saturday early morning that Kohli had messaged the BCCI and told them that he had retired from Test cricket came as a shock. While he's definitely not as old as many of the legends who played on before him and hasn't even crossed the 10K mark yet, Kohli felt it was time to move on from the format. Kohli ends his Test career with 9230 runs from 23 Tests at an average of 46.8, as India's 4th highest run-scorer in Tests, behind Sachin Tendulkar (15,921), Rahul Dravid (13265) and Sunil Gavaskar (10122).

"It's been 14 years since I first wore the baggy blue in Test cricket. Honestly, I never imagined the journey this format would take me on. It's tested me, shaped me, and taught me lessons I'll carry for life. There's something deeply personal about playing in whites. The quiet grind, the long days, the small moments that no one sees but that stay with you forever," Kohli announced on social media on Monday.

"As I step away from this format, it's not easy — but it feels right. I've given it everything I had, and it's given me back so much more than I could've hoped for. I'm walking away with a heart full of gratitude — for the game, for the people I shared the field with, and for every single person who made me feel seen along the way."

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Kohli's retirement signals the end of his career and the last Test against Australia in Sydney. It also means that his retirement, along with Rohit and Ravichandran Ashwin, and no Ajinkya Rahane or Cheteshwar Pujara, means India will have no experience going into the England Tests, with Ravindra Jadeja most likely the most capped player of the squad, which is said to be named next week. Kohli, who has now retired from T20Is and Tests, will only focus on ODI cricket, which is his own format - and where he is king - with the 2027 World Cup in South Africa on the top of Kohli's priority list.

In an extraordinary 14-year career, Kohli had many highs, none more than being India's Test captain. Kohli led the country in Tests and ended his career as India's most successful Test captain with 40 wins from 68 Test matches, one of which was the memorable series win in Australia for the 2018-19 Border-Gavaskar Trophy which Kohli's side won 2-1 and a first win on Aussie soil. Under Kohli, India were the ICC mace holders for five years in a row and No. 1 Test nationally ranked country.

Nonetheless, Kohli's decision to retire from Test cricket is surprising, given how he openly embraced the format. Kohli has always stood up for Test cricket; whether he was the captain or not, Kohli was always an advocate for the format - and that's never going to change. While commanding the Test side, Kohli, led by coach Ravi Shastri, established a World-class and incomparable pace-bowling unit that would take 20 wickets to win a game, making India a threat when touring in a time that was primarily dominated by home teams.

Kohli's leadership directly connected with his batting success. The charging, brash batter, who once infamously boiled over and told off a crowd in Sydney, became the world's most accredited Test batter by following a 'staircase' to success. As soon as Kohli scored his maiden hundred in the Adelaide Test, he was off. By 2013, Kohli had scored his first-ever overseas hundred in South Africa at Johannesburg, which was supposedly going to lead onto bigger and better things - It did lead to bigger and better things, but it was not without face planting! After being anointed the next 'big news' in Indian cricket, he first found out what 'test' cricket was, when facing England in 2014. Kohli couldn't cope with the swinging ball; the great James Anderson, exposed Kohli's sides outside his off-stump. Having scored 134 runs and with five Tests behind him, Kohli was disappointed, however, the storm was just gathering.

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Kohli's meteoric rise started with a trip to Australia and by the time he had finished there he was the biggest thorn in Australia's side. Kohli scored 692 runs in four Tests averaging 86.40 with four centuries included in that run, including the famous Adelaide twin tons, pushing Kohli's career to new heights and in a way igniting his love for Australia, a team he would end his career with 3320 runs and nine hundreds against. Kohli's career turned in Australia, while it started with a bang, it ended in silence. In his final Test series the Indian legend contributed just 190 runs at an average of 23.75 and of those runs 100 came in a single innings.

During 2015-2019, Kohli couldn't be stopped as he bashed one record after another. The year 2016 and especially the runs made in that year will forever be synonymous with Kohli, in a similar fashion to 1998 being synonymous with Sachin Tendulkar. Kohli bludgeoned 1215 runs at an average of 75.93 and with four centuries, including a highest score of 235 against England. If 2016 was grand, 2018 was redemption for Kohli, four years after a seemingly nightmarish tour of England, Kohli was facing the same bailey and particularly his old nemesis, Anderson again. And boy, what he achieved there will be put in the records to last a lifetime.

This time around, there were no outside edge issues or tentative footwork - just pure class. Kohli picked up his mojo and pummeled 593 runs at an average of 59.30 with two hundreds and three fifties, and whereas India lost 1-3, Kohli the batter was never as menacing. He won the ICC Test Player of the Year later that same year. Kohli went on to dominate Test matches until December of 2019, making a hundred in India's first pink-ball match against Bangladesh. But then, for the next three years, Kohli's average tanked. For all intents and purposes, Kohli did not make a single hundred for India for almost three and a half years. He started to end the drought against Australia. In the interim, he stepped down as India's captain of all formats when India lost against South Africa in 2022. In the race of time between then and his farewell knock, Kohli began to score tonnes, but just lacked the same fluency. In the interim, Kohli's Test average, which read 55.10 in September of 2019, dropped to a shade under 47. Certainly one of his most reassuring Test knocks in fact, was the innings of 76 he made against South Africa, when under Rohit, India also drew the Test two-Test series 1-1.

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