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Eyes focused, collar turned up, an armband on the left and an armband tattoo on the right, the iconic wrist-twirl of the bat. Virat Kohli, the world’s most famous cricketer, at the crease in whites, brought balance, poise and ferocity — a sight to behold unless you were in the opposition XI.
Kohli, who announced on Monday that he will be retiring from Test cricket, the longest format of the sport — will close his career on 9,230 runs in 210 innings across 123 matches over 14 years, with 30 centuries and an average of 46.85.
Yet Kohli’s impact extends well beyond his incredible numbers. He championed Test cricket when it seemed to be withering away and backed that belief up by transforming India into a fearsome side.
The growth of Twenty20 cricket, particularly with franchise leagues headlined by the Indian Premier League (IPL), saw Test cricket — once viewed as the gold standard in the international game — take a backseat.
Its return to significance owes plenty to Kohli.
“Test cricket is very similar to life. If things don’t go your way on day one, you have to go to sleep, wake up and come back,” Kohli explained in an interview with Graham Bensinger in 2019. “Even if you do well, you have to wake up the next day, work hard all over again.
Kohli batting against Australia earlier this year (Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
“Sometimes you’re batting for three hours without scoring a run. Sometimes life is just about that: hanging in there, waiting for your time and capitalising on it.”
Upon becoming India’s Test captain in 2014, Kohli began changing the culture within the team. His predecessor MS Dhoni had moulded India into a dominant force when playing in Asia on spinning wickets, but they struggled to replicate those exploits in South Africa, England, New Zealand and Australia.
Kohli noticed the bridge between India and the best teams in the world two years earlier, during a tour of Australia that ended in a 4-0 whitewash. Playing in a line-up that included legends Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman, with 300 runs across eight innings, Kohli was the only away batter to score a century — a valiant 116 in India’s 272 after Australia put up 604 in the first innings of the final Test, a 298-run Aussie win.
“I thought: ‘If I don’t change the way I’m playing, training, thinking or eating, I can never be among the best players in the world.’ That’s the time I realized that if the Indian team has to be the best in the world, we need to go ahead in a certain manner,” Kohli told Bensinger.
The first step was improving his and the team’s fitness and fielding. His captaincy debut — standing in for Dhoni against Australia at Adelaide in December 2014 — saw him score centuries in both innings (115 & 141).
Dhoni permanently handed the reins over to Kohli for the fourth Test, with India down 2-0. Kohli’s 147 led India to 475 in response to Australia’s 572 and they initially went after a 349-run second-innings target before settling for a draw.
A marker had been laid. There would be no meek surrenders from, or inferiority complex within, the Indian ranks away from home — on the scoreboard or in attitude.
Kohli, 36, criticised during his early years for his overt aggression, did not tone that down as captain. Instead, he emboldened it with maturity and a clear understanding of when psychological warfare worked and when it backfired.
Multiple series wins followed in his first four years in charge before 2018, a defining year for Kohli’s India and global Test cricket.
A visit to South Africa, which marked the debut of India’s most exciting fast-bowling prospect in decades in Jasprit Bumrah, was the first litmus test.
Losses in the first two Tests — with India letting both games slip away from dominant positions — gave South Africa an unassailable lead. India responded by winning the third Test thanks to Bumrah’s seven-wicket return, aggressively chirping away at South Africa all game.
That was a turning point; for long the beta away from home, India had become the intimidators.
The Australia tour in late 2018 and early 2019 provided compelling evidence that the application of Kohli’s learnings from 2012 had reached its crescendo. The 2-1 series win was the first by an Asian side in Australia in 71 years of touring there.
Having relied on the guile of their spinners for decades, India’s identity on hostile territory was now dictated by the directness and intelligence of their pace bowlers. Bumrah, Mohammed Shami and Ishant Sharma accumulated 48 wickets between them, outperforming Australia’s famed trio of Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood (40 wickets).
With the bat, India could blend scoring at an above-average rate through KL Rahul and Ajinkya Rahane with Cheteshwar Pujara’s block-them-into-oblivion style and young wicket-keeper Rishabh Pant’s explosiveness. Kohli was at the centre of it all, situationally capable of any of the three styles of batting, while his proactive bowling changes and innovative field set-ups caught the eye.
Kohli’s men were also the fittest and loudest they had ever been.
India’s ability to give historically invincible teams the jitters contributed to a watershed moment in Test cricket. Their massive fanbase and globally influential board were no longer resigned to defeat when the team boarded its flight. The Test format had rediscovered the jeopardy that made it so unique.
When India returned to Australia in late 2020, there was optimism. That came crashing down as the visitors were bundled out for 36 in the first Test, resulting in a humiliating loss. Kohli then returned to India for the birth of his child, missing the rest of the series, but his efforts over five-and-a-half years paid off.
A first-innings century from stand-in skipper Rahane led India to victory in the second Test. Ten days later, Pujara, Hanuma Vihari and Ravichandran Ashwin faced 494 combined balls in the fourth innings, battling cramps, injuries and several red-ball-shaped marks inflicted by Australia’s pacers to get India a draw in Sydney.
The fourth Test was the full-circle moment. Having fallen short while chasing in Adelaide in his first Test as captain, India – without Kohli, Bumrah, Ashwin, Vihari and Shami – chased down 329 on the final day in Brisbane to win the series 2-1.
That was followed by a fantastic England tour, where more demons of old were vanquished as India took a 2-1 lead after four Tests, poised to secure another famous away series victory. Kohli, while not as prolific with the bat, had led from the front with his authority, before Covid-19 forced a pause. India eventually lost the rescheduled fifth Test in July 2022 by seven wickets.
From 2014 to 2021, Kohli led the ultimate Indian makeover driven by fitness and resilience, reviving Test cricket when it seemed to be hurtling towards irrelevance. His approach, as he explained on the RCB Podcast: Bold and Beyond this year, was straightforward.
“You have to take a risk… You have to break it down to the point where you say: ‘Even if I feel like I might fail, I’m going to fail doing what I want to do. I’m not going to succumb to these demons in my head.’”
Kohli celebrates scoring a century in 2014 (Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)
Kohli’s numbers made him a worthy successor to Tendulkar, to many the greatest Indian Test cricketer. Kohli has never encouraged those comparisons. “(Tendulkar) revolutionised the sport in this country… You’ll always have someone who comes and changes the sport. If you talk about basketball, you have (Michael) Jordan, the way he changed the outlook of the game and unlocked new abilities for people to believe in,” Kohli explained to Bensinger.
“My opportunity is to motivate people in another manner, which is improving the culture of cricket and the way cricketers should aspire to play for the country: work hard on their fitness, be disciplined, take care of their diet, take it to the absolute peak of professionalism. In order to keep the standard of the sport going in the country and globally, everyone needs to take responsibility.”
If Tendulkar was Jordan, Kohli was Kobe Bryant, revelling when the lights shone the brightest.
In 68 matches as Test captain, Kohli racked up 5,864 runs in 113 innings with 20 centuries, including seven double-hundreds. His average of 54.8 exceeded his total career average of 46.85.
One of the best situational batters ever, 10 of his 20 centuries as captain saw him score at a strike rate over 70, but Kohli was capable of blunting attacks too. When India struggled against New Zealand in the 2021 World Test Championship final at Southampton, Kohli stood firm with a 132-ball 44. His final Test match as captain saw him play second fiddle to a marauding Rishabh Pant (100 off 139) with a 143-ball 29.
Kohli’s batting evolved from the brash shots that oozed overconfidence and papered over frailties to elegance, calculated aggression and swiftness between the wickets. Every run counted.
When England and New Zealand troubled him with swinging deliveries that forced edges behind with the bat away from his body, Kohli adapted, shuffling across his stumps to get closer to the ball, while developing a better understanding of when to let the ball go.
Kohli giving a team talk as India captain in 2018 (Michael Dodge/Getty Images)
Like most professional sportspeople, Kohli has a simple mantra.
“Preparation is in my hands; the results are not. I just have to stay true to my instincts: if I have to hit the ball, I have to hit the ball. That is my only responsibility. Where the ball goes, how the execution happens: that is (out of my control) because there are other people involved,” Kohli said in the 2025 interview.
“You don’t deserve to perform every time.”
The past four-and-a-half years have been difficult for Kohli. In 69 Test innings since the start of 2020, he has scored just 2,028 runs at an average of 30.7 with only three centuries and 20 single-digit scores (including five ducks).
Fans accustomed to seeing the helmet off, bat raised, and fist pumped have instead viewed wry smiles of disbelief, brain fades, and slow trudges back to the pavilion. Teams worked out the shuffle across the stumps and Kohli’s reliance on a front-foot lean to catch him out with rising deliveries.
India have struggled too. They suffered a 3-0 series sweep at home by New Zealand in late 2024 as Kohli scored 93 runs in six innings. A 3-1 series defeat in Australia, who have reclaimed their status as the best Test team, followed. Kohli broke his 15-innings streak without a century in the first Test as India won but scored 85 runs in the remaining seven innings. His final two innings brought just 23 runs in a six-wicket defeat, a whimpering conclusion to an all-conquering career.
Kohli was far from the sole reason for the defeats, but India begrudgingly needed to look ahead.
Kohli will know that, too. In a 2018 interview on the YouTube show Breakfast with Champions, Kohli spoke about the end of his career. “I’ve (previously) woken up feeling a sense of detachment from what I’m doing, thinking: ‘I don’t want to do this’ because of excessive pressure that’s been on me during a difficult phase, but I’ve had the ability to still tell myself that I’ll go out and try once more,” he said.
“The day you lose the will to go out and try once more, you can’t do anything, and no one can convince you — no chance. The day I lose my passion, I’ll stop playing. The day I’m standing on the field thinking ‘Why am I doing this?’ when I don’t have the passion or energy to win, I won’t be able to play.”
Having long been the answer to India’s struggles, the last thing Kohli would want is to be the one posing them questions, despite the BCCI (India’s cricket board) reportedly requesting him to stay.
His retirement was made with conviction, just like every other decision across a magnificent Test career.
(Top photo: Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)
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