A year after retiring from T20Is, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli also retired from Tests.
Former India player Aakash Chopra believes that Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli have announced their retirements from the “wrong format”, stating that they should have continued playing Tests.
Rohit and Kohli, both former India Test captains, announced their retirements from the longest format in May. This was just one month before India’s tour of England in June for a five-match Test series.
Last year, both of them had retired from T20Is following India’s T20 World Cup triumph in West Indies.
“The truth is that they have said goodbye to the wrong format. They had left T20Is after winning the T20 World Cup, but the story might have been different had they continued to play Tests and said goodbye to ODIs. India played only six ODIs in 12 months before the Champions Trophy,” the 47-year-old said on his YouTube channel.
Chopra backed his statement by saying that playing Test cricket would have benefitted Rohit and Kohli as it would help them stay in touch with the game. The duo’s next assignment will be the three-match ODI series against Australia Down Under in October.
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“There is a possibility that you might play only six Tests in a year, but even if it’s only six Tests, it’s 30 days of cricket. If only six ODIs are played, it’s just six days of cricket over a period of time. It will be more than 100 days from your last IPL match to the next ODI you will play. You are not playing at all. You are not practising at all,” he continued.
Rohit and Kohli have not been assured of their spots in the India squad for the 2027 ODI World Cup just yet. There are even reports suggesting that Rohit and Kohli will have to play the Vijay Hazare Trophy later this season. Chopra, however, believes that Rohit and Kohli will not be playing in the Vijay Hazare Trophy or any other first-class tournaments.
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“A three-match series gets over in seven to eight days. Then the next one would be after three months. Gaps are just incredibly huge, and you won’t play first-class cricket in between. It’s true that had they continued playing Test cricket and left ODIs, staying in the groove would have been a lot easier,” the former Delhi cricketer explained.
Rohit Sharma retired from the longest format after having played 67 Tests and having scored 4301 runs at an average of 40.57. This includes 18 fifties and 12 hundreds. Virat Kohli, on the other hand, played 123 Tests for India but could not breach the 10,000-run mark. He finished with 9230 runs at an average of 46.85, with 31 fifties and 30 hundreds to his name.
