‘Test cricket needs Virat': Brian Lara says Kohli will be persuaded to not retire before England tour
West Indies batting legend Brian Lara has come out to urge India veteran Virat Kohli not to give up on Test cricket just yet after the 36-year-old recently told the selectors that he wanted to retire from the longest format ahead of India's highly anticipated five-match tour to England.
On Saturday, the Indian Express reported that Kohli wished to retire from Test cricket with immediate effect, but the BCCI's top brass had urged him to reconsider his decision.
Kohli's decision was revealed closely on the back of Test captain Rohit Sharma's retirement from the format after the national selectors told him that they were moving on from him after his poor returns in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in Australia.
Despite starting the series with a century in Perth in November 2024, Kohli also returned poor series overalls, tallying only 193 runs in nine innings at a 23.5 average. Of the eight innings where he was dismissed on tour, seven of Kohli's dismissals were adjudged caught-behind.
A post shared by Brian Lara (@brianlaraofficial)
However, in a social media post, Lara urged that Kohli needed to be persuaded to stay on in the red-ball format.
'Test cricket needs Virat!! He is going to be persuaded. He is NOT going to retire from Test cricket,' Lara wrote in an Instagram post below a picture of him with Kohli. '@virat.kohli is going to average above 60 for the remainder of his Test career,' he added, expressing faith in the 36-year-old's enduring class and motivation.
Kohli has amassed 9,230 runs in 123 Tests at an average of 46.85 since his debut in 2011 against the West Indies. His average dipped in the last five years, aggregating only above 2000 runs in 37 games with three hundreds.
Kohli had already retired from T20Is after India won the T20 World Cup in West Indies last year. However, he was in supreme form during this IPL with 505 runs in 11 matches, including seven fifties, at a strike rate of 143.46.
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