When Will Virat Kohli Next Play For India?

An era ended on May 12 in Indian cricket history as Virat Kohli, one of the best batters to have come out of India, announced his retirement from Test cricket. His retirement came just a few days after Rohit Sharma also announced that his time was up in the longest format of the game. 

Kohli bid adieu to Test cricket with 9,230 runs to his name. He scored 30 Test hundreds and signed off as India’s most successful Test skipper ever. Kohli led India in 68 Tests in total, with the team winning a whopping 40 of those games. Between 2015-21, India arguably had their strongest ever Test side playing for the nation as overseas Test victories became a norm, rather than a one-off instance. 

With Kohli already having retired from T20I cricket after winning the T20 World Cup in 2024, held in the United States of America and the West Indies, he will only remain an active player in the ODI format for India. 

However, the next big tournament in the format is two years later — the 2027 ODI World Cup. While it’s uncertain if Kohli will continue playing internationally until then, the next time he will appear in the blue jersey would be in a few months. 

The senior Indian men are scheduled to travel to Bangladesh during August, and India will play three ODIs there, on August 17, 20 and 23. If the tour goes on despite the ongoing geopolitical tensions between New Delhi and Dhaka, then the next time Kohli fans could see him walk out in India colours would be on August 17, which is slightly more than three months away from now. 

However, if the tour doesn’t go on, India are scheduled to travel to Australia for a tour in October, where they will be playing three ODIs there, beginning October 19, and then on October 23 and 25. So if not on August 17, then October 19 definitely can be the day when Indian cricket and Kohli fans could see him back in India colours on the field. 

Notably, Kohli has 14,181 runs in 302 ODIs at an average of 57.88.