Ajit Agarkar sheds light on Virat Kohli’s test retirement with the latter reaching out on April to convey his decision.
a total of 190 games played, 13,500 runs scored, 42 hundreds in the format, and 92 Test-match captaincy experience. The chair of the India men’s selection panel, Ajit Agarkar, stated that while the recent Test retirements of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli are “big holes to fill,” you have to “respect” them and move on when players decide to leave the game, even if it’s before a high-profile five-Test tour of England.
During the announcement of India’s 18-man team, which will be captained by Shubman Gill, Ajit Agarkar sheds light that Kohli had contacted the selectors early in the 2025 Indian Premier League to let them know he was quitting Test cricket.
“Virat reached out early April and said he wants to finish,” Agarkar said. “We’ve seen him give 200% to every ball that he plays, even when he is not batting or he’s in the field. He probably felt that he had given everything that he had and if he can’t keep up to the standards that he set for himself over the years, and how good he has been, and maybe it was time for him. It has come from him. You’ve got to respect that. They have earned that respect, both of them. As all great players are, the one thing there is, they are true to themselves, and he was in that conversation. So you’ve got to respect that. We’ll obviously miss [Kohli], when you’ve got a guy who’s played 123 Test matches, 30 Test hundreds, it’s going to be tough to fill.”
Agarkar stated that the Test team would go through a “big transition” because they were also without R Ashwin, who retired in the middle of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in Australia in December. However, he did not elaborate on how the discussion surrounding Rohit’s retirement, which was announced five days prior to Kohli’s, had unfolded. Since Rishabh Pant and KL Rahul are the only batters in the team with prior Test experience in England, India will have a somewhat inexperienced batting lineup for the five Test matches that begin on June 20 in England.
But Agarkar emphasised that now that the retirement decisions were made, it was crucial to look ahead, develop younger players, and assemble a team for the upcoming World Test Championship (WTC) cycle because it would be “someone else’s chance now.”
When guys like that retire it’s always going to be big holes to fill,” Agarkar said. “Ashwin retired a few months back as well, so those three guys are stalwarts of our cricket. It’s always difficult. One way of looking at it is an opportunity for someone else. They’ve left a legacy behind.
“Needless to say, Rohit has been a leader over the last couple of years since he started leading in the Test matches. It is a new cycle, so it is an opportunity to build something for us as well. That’s why I think we’ve got to show them the respect that they want instead of speculating too many things. It is sometimes a personal call with players and you’ve got to respect that and their performances over the years have shown in the amount of games that they’ve won for India. It is someone else’s chance now but there’s no doubt we’ll miss them. I mean all three of them and [Mohammed] Shami. In Test cricket he’s been incredible. So four guys like that not being part of the squad is going to make it a little bit tougher but it’s an opportunity for other guys.”