"Shocked and sad" at Virat Kohli's sudden retirement from the longest format, former England skipper Michael Vaughan said no individual has done more for Test cricket than the star Indian batter. Kohli announced his retirement from Test cricket on Monday, drawing the curtain on a stellar red-ball career. He represented India in 123 Tests, scoring 9,230 runs at an average of 46.85, including 30 centuries. "There are not too many Test retirements where I am left genuinely disappointed that I won't watch a cricketer play again. But I'm sad we won't see Virat Kohli in England this summer or in whites any more," Vaughan wrote in his column for the Telegraph.
"I'm shocked that he's retiring now, and I'm also quite sad about it. In my time involved in the game, stretching back more than 30 years, I don't believe there is any individual who has done more for the Test format than Virat." Kohli led India to 40 wins in 68 Tests -- the most by any Indian skipper to date -- and Vaughan said it was the 36-year-old Indian who brought the love back to the traditional format, and the five-day game would have been a "far blander place" without him.
"When he took the captaincy just over a decade ago, I was worried India was losing interest in Test cricket," said the 50-year-old, who served as England Test captain from 2003 to 2008.
"MS Dhoni was one of the great white-ball players but it felt like he captained a Test team who did not love the format. The game needs India to be madly in love with Test cricket, and that is what Virat fostered as captain.
"His passion, skill, and the way he talked about Test cricket always being the pinnacle has been a huge shot in the arm for the format. Test cricket would have been a far blander place without him, and there is a chance it would have lost its appeal if he had not been as interested and invested in it." Vaughan described Kohli as the greatest player across all formats and called his retirement a blow to Test cricket.
"His retirement now is a blow to Test cricket and very disappointing for fans – not least in England this summer – but my belief is that he has helped forge a love for the format among the generation that will follow him, and kept the flame burning," wrote the former opening batter.
"It's impossible to compare across every era, but if you look at since T20 came in around 20 years ago, he is almost certainly the greatest player when you consider all three formats." There has been a lot of criticism around Kohli's on-field aggressive persona but Vaughan feels the Indian superstar didn't have such a big ego as has been made out to be.
"All great players have egos, but maybe Virat's wasn't quite as big as we thought. Perhaps family life has mellowed him a bit, and he just wants as normal a life as he possibly can, which is probably going to be in London, where he spends a lot of time now.
"Those outside that bubble really can't imagine what it's like being a Kohli or a Sachin Tendulkar, with the pressure of billions of adoring fans on your shoulders."
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