Virat Kohli’s recent crackling form in white-ball cricket has Navjot Singh Sidhu seeking divine intervention. The former Indian batter said that if God ever granted him one wish, he would ask for Kohli to come out of Test retirement and play the toughest format of the game again. Kohli, 37, widely regarded as one of the finest Indian Test captains, retired from his favourite format earlier this year, just days before the squad announcement for the series against England.
Kohli’s decision came on the back of a horrendous Border-Gavaskar Trophy against Australia Down Under, where he kept chasing deliveries bowled in the fourth stump channel. He did score a century in the series opener in Perth, but his campaign went downhill post that as the batter struggled against the moving ball, failing to curb his instincts of chasing the deliveries bowled well outside the off stump.
His decision to bid adieu to Tests came out of the blue, and no one was prepared for Kohli to say goodbye to a format he championed throughout his career. However, Kohli has been in phenomenal form of late, scoring centuries for fun in ODIs, and this has led to Sidhu praying to God for his Test comeback.
“If God granted me a wish I’d say bring Kohli out of his retirement & make him play Test Cricket …. Nothing would give more joy and ecstasy to a country of 1.5 billion ! His fitness is that of a twenty year old – he himself 24 carat gold,” Navjot Singh Sidhu wrote on Instagram.
It is worth mentioning that Kohli won’t be coming out of Test retirement, and he made it clear after winning the Player of the Match award in Ranchi against South Africa. Throughout the contest, there were murmurs about the BCCI decision-makers potentially asking Kohli to reconsider his Test retirement.
However, Kohli put all rumours to rest, stating that he has no plans of a U-turn and he will continue to play just the ODIs.
Kohli falls short of 10,000 Test runs
If someone in 2019 had predicted that Kohli wouldn’t get to the 10,000-run mark in Tests, no one would have believed that person. However, such was the downward trend post-2020 that Kohli indeed failed to join the coveted club.
Kohli’s Test career has seen him play 123 matches and score 9230 runs at an average of 46.85, with 30 centuries and 31 fifties. His highest score in the format is an unbeaten 254, which came against South Africa in Pune.
Kohli most recently played the opening two matches of the Vijay Hazare Trophy for Delhi against Andhra and Gujarat, playing knocks of 131 and 77. Before this, he won the Player of the Series accolade against South Africa after hitting two tons and one unbeaten fifty.
