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Times of Oman
23-05-2025
- Sport
- Times of Oman
Angelo Mathews to retire from Tests after first Sri Lanka vs Bangladesh match
Colombo: Former Sri Lanka captain Angelo Mathews on Friday announced that the first test match against Bangladesh in June will be his last red-ball appearance for his country, as per the ICC official website. Mathews, who made his Test debut against Pakistan in 2009, has been a cornerstone of Sri Lankan cricket for over 15 years, excelling as both an all-rounder and a leader. Aggregating 8,167 in 118 matches, he is only behind Kumar Sangakkara (12,400) and Mahela Jayawardena (11,814) for most Test runs by a Sri Lankan. He also proved handy with the ball with 33 wickets to his name. Mathews will have a chance to add to those runs and wickets in his 119th and final match in 'whites' against Bangladesh next month. He is also Sri Lanka's third most successful Test captain, having led the side to 13 wins in 34 matches between 2013 and 2017. Announcing his retirement via social media, Mathews said, "It is time for me to say goodbye to the most cherished format of the game, International Test Cricket! The past 17 years of playing cricket for Sri Lanka have been my highest honour and pride. Nothing can match that feeling of patriotism and servitude when one dons the National Jersey." "I have given my everything to cricket and Cricket has given me everything in return and made me the person that I am today. I stand grateful to the game and thankful to the thousands of Sri Lanka Cricket fans who have been there for me throughout my career during my highest of highs and lowest of lows. The first test match against Bangladesh in June will be my last red-ball appearance for my country," the post added. While announcing his retirement, Mathews also confirmed that he will remain available for selection in the white-ball formats. His last appearance for Sri Lanka in limited-overs cricket came over a year ago, during their group-stage clash against New Zealand at the 2023 ICC Men's Cricket World Cup. Sri Lanka Cricket took to their social media handle and reacted to the 37-year-old player's decision to leave Test cricket. "A true servant of Sri Lanka Test Cricket. Thank you, @Angelo69Mathews, for 17 years of unwavering dedication, leadership, and unforgettable moments in the red-ball format. Your commitment and passion have inspired a generation. We wish you all the very best as you step away from Test cricket and look forward to seeing your continued contributions in white-ball cricket," SLC wrote on X.
Khaleej Times
23-05-2025
- Sport
- Khaleej Times
Sri Lanka's Angelo Mathews to retire from Test cricket
Former Sri Lanka captain Angelo Mathews on Friday announced that the first Test match against Bangladesh in June will be his last red-ball appearance for his country, as per the ICC official website. Mathews, who made his Test debut against Pakistan in 2009, has been a cornerstone of Sri Lankan cricket for over 15 years, excelling as both an all-rounder and a leader. Aggregating 8,167 in 118 matches, he is only behind Kumar Sangakkara (12,400) and Mahela Jayawardena (11,814) for most Test runs by a Sri Lankan. He also proved handy with the ball with 33 wickets to his name. Mathews will have a chance to add to those runs and wickets in his 119th and final match in 'whites' against Bangladesh next month. He is also Sri Lanka's third most successful Test captain, having led the side to 13 wins in 34 matches between 2013 and 2017. Announcing his retirement via social media, Mathews said, "It is time for me to say goodbye to the most cherished format of the game, International Test Cricket! The past 17 years of playing cricket for Sri Lanka have been my highest honour and pride. Nothing can match that feeling of patriotism and servitude when one dons the National Jersey." "I have given my everything to cricket and Cricket has given me everything in return and made me the person that I am today. I stand grateful to the game and thankful to the thousands of Sri Lanka Cricket fans who have been there for me throughout my career during my highest of highs and lowest of lows. The first test match against Bangladesh in June will be my last red-ball appearance for my country," the post added. — Angelo Mathews (@Angelo69Mathews) May 23, 2025 While announcing his retirement, Mathews also confirmed that he will remain available for selection in the white-ball formats. His last appearance for Sri Lanka in limited-overs cricket came over a year ago, during their group-stage clash against New Zealand at the 2023 ICC Men's Cricket World Cup. Sri Lanka Cricket took to their social media handle and reacted to the 37-year-old player's decision to leave Test cricket. "A true servant of Sri Lanka Test Cricket. Thank you, @Angelo69Mathews, for 17 years of unwavering dedication, leadership, and unforgettable moments in the red-ball format. Your commitment and passion have inspired a generation. We wish you all the very best as you step away from Test cricket and look forward to seeing your continued contributions in white-ball cricket," SLC wrote on X.
Washington Post
21-05-2025
- Sport
- Washington Post
England prepares for India with its first test against Zimbabwe in 22 years
For England, it's little more than a warm-up match ahead of much sterner examinations to come. For Zimbabwe, it means everything. Trent Bridge in Nottingham will host a four-day test match — something of a rarity for the usual five-day format but perhaps a sign of the future — from Thursday when England and Zimbabwe meet for the first time at international level in 18 years since a Twenty20 World Cup match in Cape Town.
Daily Mail
13-05-2025
- Sport
- Daily Mail
Who is the next Virat Kohli? These seven India stars have the best chance
The retirement of Virat Kohli from Test cricket leaves the Indian batting lineup without an all-time great for their fans to worship – for the first time since the emergence of Sachin Tendulkar 35 years ago. Here, Inside Cricket looks at the candidates most likely, one day, to step into Kohli's shoes:
The Guardian
13-05-2025
- Sport
- The Guardian
Beyond the runs: Virat Kohli's obsessive intensity left indelible mark on Test cricket
At dawn on a pale pastel morning in late January, thousands of fans started queueing outside the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi. Before long the queues turned chaotic. Scuffles broke out. Three people were injured and a police motorcycle was damaged. Armed security personnel were deployed inside and outside the venue, occasionally stepping in front of the sightscreen and causing play to be stopped. But the consequences of Virat Kohli playing his first domestic red-ball game for Delhi in 12 years are less interesting than why he was there in the first place. Kohli rolled up in his Porsche two days before the game, arriving early to beat the crowds and so he could fit in a full gym session before team fitness drills and net practice. Desperately short of form, and yet a desperate romantic, Kohli had come to worship at the altar. One last crack at Test cricket. One last attempt at rekindling the skill that had long deserted him. As it turned out, Delhi v Railways would be Kohli's last red‑ball innings. He was bowled for six and Delhi won by an innings, so that was it, apart from the spectator who invaded the field to touch his feet. And as he announced his retirement from Test cricket on Monday, somehow the strongest memory was not of the 149 at Edgbaston or the 169 at Melbourne or the 254 at Pune, the times when he would make cricket look scandalously easy. What lingers, by contrast, is the times when it was scandalously hard: when the bowlers were fresh and the pitch was spicy and the verbals were flowing, and he pushed through anyway, because this game is a sacred birthright and you will never truly conquer it, but the only glory is in trying. 'I cannot explain the job satisfaction you get when you do well in Test cricket,' Kohli once said in an interview with Wisden Cricket Monthly. But what he could not explain in word, he more than conveyed in deed. Kohli kept getting out to Jimmy Anderson in 2014. Before his next tour of England four years later, he buried himself in video footage and net practice: realigning his hips, his footwork, his shoulders, seeking out old coaches for advice, even installing a camera alongside the crease so he could monitor his foot position. Frankly, Test cricket should be exactly this hard, exactly this obsessive, exactly this painstaking, exactly this exacting. This is the only way it makes sense. Kohli made 593 runs in that 2018 series, the centrepiece of a purple patch that lasted from late-2014 to the pandemic, during which he seemed to be batting with a kind of force field around him. He scored centuries on every continent, against every team he faced. And of course it never had to be this way. Early in his career Kohli was pegged as a white-ball specialist who would never sufficiently harness his hot-blooded temperament to succeed in the five-day game. There were occasional unflattering comparisons with Michael Bevan. Though it seems strange to recall now, there was a feverish element of superimposed crisis to the early years of Kohli's career, the first imperial bloom of the Indian Premier League. The deeply fusty idea that the older generation – Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly, Anil Kumble – had treasured this game, and now the flash kids with their tattoos and haircuts were going to ruin it by turning it into an obstacle course or a Gangnam Style or something. Neither market forces nor physical wellbeing dictated that Kohli had to dominate Test cricket. He could easily have quiet-quit like Jos Buttler or Mahendra Singh Dhoni, made his legend and made his fortune. But something about this game beguiled him, bewitched him, wound him closer. And ultimately Kohli would advocate for Test cricket not just through words and not just through deeds, but by a kind of exemplary fury: a face and an energy and an intensity that through its sheer force of will ennobled the contest itself. Whether through fielding standards or fitness, petulance or belligerence, Kohli did not just want to beat you. He wanted to bury you. He wanted you to cry about it. 'The most Australian non-Australian cricketer we've ever seen,' was Greg Chappell's verdict on Monday, and it speaks volumes about Kohli that his average against Australia away is higher than it was at home. Something about those tours – the sledging, the crowd abuse, the heat and the light and the hostility – seemed to summon the animal in him. Eight years ago, on a white-ball tour of India, I was exercising in a hotel gym in Nagpur when in walked pretty much the last person you want to be exercising alongside in a hotel gym in Nagpur. And of course Kohli was the perfect physical specimen, emasculatingly so, a man who could lift more with his left arm than I could with both. But the bit that sticks was when Kohli noticed that the Australian Open final between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal was reaching a crucial juncture. Sign up to The Spin Subscribe to our cricket newsletter for our writers' thoughts on the biggest stories and a review of the week's action after newsletter promotion Kohli strode right up to the TV until the screen was about four inches from his face. For the rest of the set his veins bulged, he shook his fist, he shouted encouragement. For years I had assumed the famed Kohli intensity was a kind of public persona, a superhero costume he could slip off as soon as the day was done. This was the moment the penny dropped. Oh wow. It is not an act. He is actually just like this all the time. And so my abiding Kohli memory is not an innings, or a series, but the sight of him screaming 'COME ON ROGER! YES ROGER! LET'S GO! YES!' in a hotel gym in Nagpur to an audience of one. It matters, too, that Kohli excelled in all three formats, that he did so as a classically orthodox player, all timing and training. Kohli described Test cricket as the most beautiful format of all, but he loved them all, and wherever he went he took his board, his teammates, his fans and the eyeballs of the world with him. He teaches us, perhaps, that amid the tribalism and format warfare, this is all basically cricket, the same base material we all know and love. The only reliable way of securing a legacy was to master all of it. The finances of the game are still grossly unequal. The smaller nations still need more support. Kohli always resisted the idea that one man could sustain Test cricket by exemplar alone, always urged national boards to invest in red-ball cricket, always argued that the dominance of Twenty20 was not simply a question of finance but of standards, facilities and basic respect. In this respect he may well end up being the most consequential cricketer of his age. The retirement of Kohli, and Rohit Sharma and Tim Southee and Anderson before him, will be greeted inevitably with heralds of doom. Test cricket's existential crisis will never pass. In many ways the existential crisis is baked into the product, a form of sport that comes with its own in-built sense of decline. But the torch will pass: to Shubman Gill and Rishabh Pant, to Yashasvi Jaiswal and Vaibhav Suryavanshi, the teenage prodigy who already has a century in whites for India under-19s. All will tread a path Kohli blazed: the idea of cricket as a cogent whole, each part as important as the next. Kohli believed in Test cricket until it broke him. Now, more than ever, is the time to show the same faith.
