Virat Kohli Retires: In 2014 Virat Kohli led India first time and changed the Indian cricket forever

Former India skipper Virat Kohli announced his retirement from Test cricket on Monday (May 12) in a heartfelt post on social media. There were reports doing rounds since last few days that Kohli has told the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) about retiring from red-ball cricket. The board, however, tried to convince him to stay on for the upcoming tour of England but Kohli decided otherwise.

Kohli retired as one of the greats of the Test cricket not only for India but in world cricket. He was one of the four members of modern-day great batters nicknamed Fab Four - the other three are Joe Root (England), Steve Smith (Australia) and Kane Williamson (New Zealand).

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During his career which spanned nearly 14 years from 2011 to 2025, Kohli amassed 9,230 runs at an average of 46 with 30 tons and 31 fifties. He was also the Indian skipper from 2014 to 2022 and the kind of cricket he was going to play was visible in the first Test he led India in, although as a stand-in.

On the 2014 tour of Australia, Virat stood skipper in Adelaide Test and the match laid out the template India would follow for the next few years.

How Virat Kohli changed Indian cricket forever

Australia had won the toss and elected to bat first. The hosts finished on 354/6 on day 1 of the Test and India looked behind in the game. Come next day, the Aussies continued to bat and took their score past 500.

When India came on to bat, they scored 369/6 to finish day 3 and Kohli had hit 115 runs out of them before getting out - but what he did was give India a chance to still win the game and put Australia on the backfoot a bit.

After India were bowled out 444 on day 4 in reply of 517/7d, Australia scored 290/5 in the second innings before declaring overnight and challenged India to chase down 364 on the final day.

Everybody thought India would play safe and go for the draw and it looked like that for the first 20 over when India managed near about 60 runs before Kohli came out to bat.

What happened in the next 50 overs changed the way Indians played cricket forever - it was a new India, Kohli's India.

Virat scored his second century of the Test as India reached from 57/2 to 242/3 - needing just 120 odd runs in the 20 overs with seven wickets in hand.

After Kohli's dismissal for 141 in the 82nd over and 60 short of the target, however, India lost the plot and were bowled out for 315 runs. But nobody was disappointed as Kohli's men had showed that they play to win no matter the cost.

On the next tour, India became the first Asian team to beat Australia in Australia in a Test series - all because of Virat Kohli.