Ravi Shastri reveals the conversation he had with Virat Kohli before his retirement

Former Team India head coach Ravi Shastri has disclosed that he had a conversation with the former Indian talismanic Test batter Virat Kohli ahead of his retirement from the longest format of the game. 

On Monday, May 12, Kohli hung up his boots from Tests ahead of the England tour in the new World Test Championship cycle. Notably, Kohli finished with 9230 runs in this particular format with 30 Test centuries 

“I did speak to him about it, I think a week before [his announcement] and his mind was very clear that he’d given his everything,” Shastri told Sanjana Ganesan in The ICC Review.

“There were no regrets. There were one or two questions I asked, and that’s a personal conversation which, you know, he mentioned very clearly, there were no doubts in his mind, which made me think, ‘Yes, the time is right’. The mind has told his body that it’s time to go.”

It’s important to note that Virat Kohli is India’s most successful Test captain with 40 wins from 68 Tests he led the team. He was 13 wins ahead of the second-best skipper MS Dhoni. 

“If he decided to do something, then he gave his 100%, which is not easy to match,” Shastri said. 

“A player does his job, [and] then you sit back. But [with Kohli] when the team goes out, it’s as if he has to take all the wickets, he has to take all the catches, he has to make all the decisions on the field.

“That much involvement, I would think there’s going to be a burnout somewhere if he doesn’t take a rest, if he doesn’t compartmentalise how much he wants to play across formats, there is bound to be a burnout.”

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