Follow UsFormer England spinner Monty Panesar, who became a household name in India after his heroics during his team’s tour of the country in 2012, pointed out a rather different reason for the Indian great Virat Kohli’s retirement from Test cricket, ahead of the England tour.
Since Kohli has been struggling with the ball in the off-stump, fourth stump channel over the last year and was exposed by the Aussie bowlers away from home and the New Zealand pacers at home. Panesar believes that this is the reason that forced Kohli to retire from Tests.
“With Kohli, what has happened is that against the ball outside the off stump, the fifth stump line, especially in Australia on fast bouncy pitches, he was struggling,” Panesar was quoted as saying to news agency PTI.
“So he probably thought maybe the fact that in England it is going to swing a lot more, he probably hasn’t worked out solutions in that corridor of uncertainty. And I think that’s probably been one of the reasons why he thought about retiring and putting all his energy into RCB and ODI cricket for India,” added the tweaker with 167 scalps in 50 Tests for England.
Panesar further went on to say that Kohli has been a brilliant ambassador for the game. “He probably feels that he’s done his best, he’s achieved everything and probably feels like it’s time for the youngsters to step up,” he said.