New Delhi: With eyes blazing and veins pumping with aggression, Virat Kohli dragged India out of the shadows of overseas mediocrity and wrote a new chapter of Test domination.
His legacy isn’t just statistics. It’s the transformation he brought to the mindset and muscle of Indian Test cricket. Fitness was non-negotiable. Fast bowling became a weapon. There was a never-ending hunger to win.
Kohli restored pride in the whites, making Test cricket cool and entertaining for the new generation. In a format often labelled outdated, following the fireworks of One Day International and T20 cricket, Kohli carved a legacy that screamed: ‘This is still the ultimate test.’
And he came out in flying colours.
But on 12 May, he drew curtains on his illustrious Test career, leaving millions of fans heartbroken. Kohli announced retirement, after 14 years of service, from a format that “tested”, “shaped” and “taught” him lessons that he says he will carry for life.
“As I step away from this format, it’s not easy—but it feels right. I’ve given it everything I had, and it’s given me back so much more than I could’ve hoped for,” he wrote in an Instagram post. “I’m walking away with a heart full of gratitude—for the game, for the people I shared the field with, and for every single person who made me feel seen along the way. I’ll always look back at my Test career with a smile.”
He ended with “#269, signing off”. He was the 269th player to represent India in Test cricket.
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The run machine
Kohli had a rather lukewarm start to his Test career. In his debut against West Indies in 2011, he scored just 76 runs in five innings, followed by two half-centuries later that year at Mumbai’s Wankhede Stadium. He was just another cricketer to wear the white stripes at the time, no one extraordinary.
Critics butchered him. Early in his Test career, he was quickly written off. Former cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar, on 6 January, 2012, had tweeted: “…give Virat one more Test…just to be sure he does not belong here.”
India’s 2014 tour of England made it worse for Kohli. England fast bowler James Anderson gave him a tough time as the right-arm pacer dismissed him on four occasions. He scored just 134 runs in his 10 innings.
It was only after the 2014-15 tour of Australia—which India had lost by 2-0—that his potential began to shine.
First, he scored two centuries in Adelaide, and followed it up with centuries in Melbourne and Sydney. He stacked up 692 runs for the series with an average of 86.50. Around this time, he also took the reins of the team as the skipper.
Then came Kohli’s poetic redemption in England in 2018. In the opening Test at Edgbaston, Kohli hit 149. The 50 in the second innings was equally impressive. Across five Tests, he collected 593 runs, becoming the highest run scorer.
The year 2018 also turned out to be his best in terms of aggregate for a year, as he racked up 1,322 runs.
As a batter, his Test career peaked between 2016 and 2019. His average across the years: 75.93 in 2016, 75.64 in 2017, 55.08 in 2018, and 68.00 in 2019.
Between 2016 and 2019 alone, Kohli piled up 4,208 runs in 43 Tests at an average of 66.79, with 16 centuries and 10 fifties in 69 innings.
His best score was 254 (not out) against South Africa, during the Proteas’ 2019-2020 tour of India. India won the series 3-0, with a margin of a series and more in at least two of the matches.
Former Australian cricketer and Indian cricket team coach Greg Chappell picked four classic Test innings of Kohli—141 in Adelaide (2014), the 153 in Centurion (2018), the 200 in the West Indies (2016) and the 254 against South Africa (2019).
“Heavy bats didn’t interest him. Instead, he brought a two-handed, almost tennis-like aggression to slower pitches, making straight-batted drives look like power strokes from another dimension. He rarely needed innovation—no scoops or reverse sweeps. His genius lay in classical orthodoxy applied with gladiatorial will,” Chappell wrote.
“He was a beacon to Indians everywhere, a cricketing colossus from the subcontinent striding across Lord’s, Adelaide, Centurion and Kolkata with the same fearless heartbeat.”
But lately, Kohli had been having a tough time with the bat. His vulnerability was exposed as he struggled with balls delivered around the off-stump line.
Kohli’s fifth and the final Test tour of Australia in 2024/25 did not end on a high. India lost the Border-Gavaskar Trophy for the first time in a decade. Kohli scored just 190 runs in nine innings at an average of 23.75, which was his worst Test outing in Australia.
“… if you ask me the intensity of how disappointed I felt, for me, the most recent Australia tour would be the one that’s most fresh. So it might feel the most intense to me,” Kohli later recalled in a Royal Challengers Bengaluru Summit.
“For a long period of time the tour of England in 2014 was the thing that bothered me the most,” he said. “But I can’t look at it that way. I might not have an Australia tour again in me, in four years’ time, I don’t know.”
With 9,230 scored across 123 Tests at an average of 46.85, Kohli finished as the 19th-highest run-scorer in the history of Test cricket and the fourth-highest run-getter for India, after Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and Sunil Gavaskar.
An aggressive captain
“If I see someone laughing, then see! For 60 overs, they should feel hell out there,” Kohli told the team as India stepped out to field on Day 5 at Lord’s.
What could have been a draw turned into a dramatic 151-run win for the Indian side.
The statement in itself is enough to describe and define Kohli’s gritty mindset. He didn’t just captain a team—he led a revolution that redefined India’s place in Test cricket’s global hierarchy.
Kohli guided India to their first-ever Test series win in Australia in 2018–19 and took the team to the top of the ICC Test rankings for a record 42 months.
Kohli brought an uncompromising focus on fitness and professionalism, setting new benchmarks for discipline. It was him who brought the yo-yo test in the dressing room.
Under his leadership, India played 68 Tests, of which they won 40—a record unmatched by any other Indian captain.
He is the most successful Test captain of all time. Kohli is followed by Dhoni with 27 wins of 60 and Sourav Ganguly with 21 wins of 49.
Internationally, he sits at No. 4 in the overall list of captains with the most Test wins, behind Graeme Smith (53 of 109), Ricky Ponting (48 of 77) and Steve Waugh (41 of 57).
But beyond numbers, his legacy lies in the culture he built—fiercely competitive.
The cricketer has time and again found himself in hot water due to his aggression. After multiple fines and warnings, Kohli refrained from reacting to the crowd but showed no mercy to the opposition.
Like other cricketers, Kohli too faced Australia’s infamous sledging. But he was the only one who gave it back with fire in his eyes and a smirk on his face.
He brought a new brand of leadership that matched Australia’s aggression with equal intensity.
He gave fiery stares to Mitchell Johnson, left no chance to provoke Steve Smith and clapped back at Tim Paine. Kohli turned sledging into psychological warfare and led a team that no longer played victim to mind games. His fearless attitude rattled Aussie egos.
Virat Kohli walked onto the field as a 22-year-old Delhi boy who loved chole bhature and left after becoming a legend of the sport.
He didn’t just play, he became the face of Indian cricket. Today, as he bows out of the Test format, it surely is the end of an era.
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)
Also Read: ‘#269, signing off’: Virat Kohli retires from Test cricket, adds ‘it’s not easy—but it feels right’