Former Indian cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar has sparked debate around Virat Kohli’s Test retirement, drawing a comparison with England great Joe Root’s continued success in the longest format. Manjrekar’s comments came after Root registered his 41st Test century during the fifth and final Test of the ongoing Ashes series. Virat Kohli, Joe Root, Steve Smith, and Kane Williamson have long been grouped together as the “Fab Four” of Test cricket. However, with Kohli retiring from Test cricket, he has become the only member of the quartet to exit the format.
“Well, as Joe Root attains new heights in Test cricket, my mind goes to Virat Kohli. He’s walked away from Test cricket, and it’s unfortunate that in the five years that he struggled before retiring, he didn’t quite put his heart and soul into finding out the problems as to why he was averaging 31 for five years in Test cricket. But I just feel sad that people like Joe Root, Steve Smith and Kane Williamson are really making a name for themselves in Test cricket,” Manjrekar said in a video shared on his Instagram.
Speaking on Kohli's decision to retire from Test cricket, Manjrekar felt that rather than walking away from Test cricket, Kohli could have addressed the technical issues that had crippled his game and continued contributing at the highest level.
“It was OK if Virat Kohli had just walked away from cricket, retired from all formats. But that he’s chosen to play one-day cricket actually disappoints me more because this is a format which, for a top-order batter, I’ve said before as well, is the easiest format. The format that really tests you is first, obviously, Test cricket, and T20 cricket has its different challenges,” he stated.
“The other thing is, because he’s so fit, supremely fit, you feel even more that he could have maybe continued his fight to get back into form. Even if he was left out of a series, he could have maybe gone down to first-class cricket, played in Australia, England, more matches in India, and tried to make another comeback,” said Manjrekar.