Former Indian coach Ravi Shastri feels star batter Virat Kohli retiring from Test cricket might have been handled in a much better way since he deserved a proper farewell. Ravi also stated how he would have appointed Kohli as the red-ball captain after the Australia series,
Virat Kohli announced his retirement from Test cricket last month on 12 May- finishing his red-ball career with 123 matches and 9230 runs at an average of 46.85 and even scoring 30 centuries,
“When you go, that’s when people realise how big a player he was. I feel sad that he is gone, the way he is gone. I think it could have been handled better, there should have been more communication,” Shastri said in a video shared by SonyLiv on social media.
Virat Kohli’s retirement decision came a short while before the Indian squad for a five-match Test series against England was to be announced to which Ravi Shastri- who had coached India during their historic victory against Australia under Kohli’s leadership, said that he would have announced the star batter as the captain once again when India lost to Australia 1-3 earlier this year in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.
“If I had anything to do with it, I would have made him captain, straightaway after Australia,” Shastri said.
Virat Kohli retired from Test cricket a short while after Rohit Sharma had announced his retirement. This left a void in the red-ball captaincy. The selectors hence decided to appoint Shubman Gill as the captain of the Indian team in the longest format of the game.
The move to appoint Shubman Gill as the leader was a bold move by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), and Gill’s leadership skills will be seen as the team will face England in a five-match Test series, set to begin June 20.
Complete squad:
Shubman Gill (C), Rishabh Pant (VC/wk), Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Sai Sudarshan, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Karun Nair, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Ravindra Jadeja, Dhruv Jurel (wk), Washington Sundar, Shardul Thakur, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna, Akash Deep, Arshdeep Singh, Kuldeep Yadav
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