Follow UsVirat Kohli announced his retirement from Test cricket on May 12, as the cricketing world was stunned to see one of the biggest advocates of the longest format of the game bid adieu to the format he respected the most.
The last red ball game Kohli played was a Ranji Trophy game involving Delhi and Railways this year, where Kohli played under state coach Sarandeep Singh. In a shock statement, coach Singh revealed to Star Sports that the retirement call came as a shock because Kohli was looking forward to scoring four-five centuries in England in the five-Test series after the IPL season got over.
“I spoke to Virat a few weeks ago when he came to play the Ranji match and asked if he’d play county cricket to prepare for the England series. He said, ‘I’ll play 2 India A matches in England,’ and added, ‘I want to hit 4-5 centuries in the England series, like I did in 2018’," Singh said.
“Yes, definitely, Virat Kohli’s sudden retirement has surprised everyone right now. We were not even thinking that he was going to take retirement from Test cricket.
“And you can say that he’s 700-800 runs behind (10,000 runs) but it’s not about that. We need to think about what happened that he took retirement so early. There was nothing indicative of that before. The stature of Virat Kohli is too big, and he didn’t get a good send-off.”
Singh reiterated that there were no signs of him retiring and he was looking forward to prepare himself for the England series.
“There were no signs of him retiring… Even at that time he was talking about the England series, the Test matches coming, that he was going to play there and he said this time he’ll be very much prepared.”