On Saturday, TimesofIndia.com reported that Virat Kohli had communicated to the BCCI his desire to retire from Test cricket ahead of the important five-match series in England, starting on June 20.While it came as a surprise to the men who matter, who had him in their plans at least for England, Kohli had made up his mind.Not just the BCCI, even people who have the best interests of Indian cricket at heart, outside of it, want him on that flight to England, but the ball seems to be in Kohli’s court now.With several cricketers requesting him to rethink his retirement plans, an old interview of him is doing the rounds, where the young Kohli vowed to cross 10,000 Test runs.Who’s that IPL player?Since his debut in the format in 2011, Kohli has played 123 Tests, amassing 9230 runs at an average of 46.85. Only seven batters have amassed 10,000 runs in both ODIs and Tests, and Kohli was potentially seen as the next entrant into that illustrious list.Among the Indian batters, Virat Kohli stands as India’s fourth-highest run-getter in the format, behind Sachin Tendulkar (15,921), Rahul Dravid (13,288), and Sunil Gavaskar (10,122).
“I don’t keep track of records at all. When I score a century in a match, I find out afterwards that it was the quickest to 10 centuries or something like that. So I only get to know about it after the match. Before the match, my focus is not on things like, ‘I have 5 innings left, and if I score 3 more centuries, I’ll set a record.’ I don’t think that way. My aim is to score 10,000 runs in Test cricket, and that’s something I really want to achieve,” Kohli said in Aaj Tak’s ‘Seedhi Baat’ in a 2013 interview.Earlier, India captain Rohit Sharma announced his retirement from Test cricket on Wednesday. Kohli also thinking along the same lines will leave India’s red-ball batting order largely on the shoulders of youngsters in the new World Test Championship (WTC) cycle.Virat labored for runs during his last Test outing in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy tour to Australia in November-January, where he made just 190 runs in nine innings at an average of 23.75, with his century at Perth being a highlight.
