By Kartikey Tripathi | Apna Cricket Team
On a random summer Monday, Virat Kohli quietly pulled the curtains on his glorious Test career — no farewell match, no grand send-off, just an Instagram post with Frank Sinatra’s 'My Way' playing softly in the background. It felt poetic, theatrical even, like a great actor exiting the stage without applause, only the echoes of his performance speaking for him. The song choice was no accident. Sinatra’s “I did it my way” perfectly captures the essence of Kohli’s Test career — a journey defined by passion, intensity, and the refusal to play by anyone else’s rules.
Virat Kohli Retires From Test Cricket ( Instagram - Virat )
For over a decade, whenever Kohli wore whites, he lived and breathed Test cricket on his own terms. Even in his goodbye, there was no chase for records — he leaves the game on 9,230 runs, just 770 short of the iconic 10,000 club, and that alone says everything about his philosophy. It was never about the numbers; it was about the fire. That fire first lit up the Gabba in 2012 when a young Kohli scored 83 against Australia and gave the crowd the middle finger — not out of disrespect, but out of raw, unfiltered emotion that defined his journey in whites.
Two years later, he was blowing kisses to Mitchell Johnson in one of the fiercest series ever played — aggression was his language, but love for the game was always the grammar. When he became captain in 2014, he took it upon himself to not just win but to awaken Indian Test cricket from its slumber. He revived the significance of the baggy blue cap, wearing his debut Test cap in every match to remind his teammates what it meant. Kohli wanted to win overseas, to dominate foreign soils, and under him, India did.
From 2015 to 2025, he became the undisputed face of Test cricket — not just in India but globally. When India toured, especially in SENA countries, tickets sold faster, stadiums filled quicker, broadcasters paid more, and TRPS soared — all because of Kohli. He turned a format that many thought was dying into a spectacle. He was Test cricket’s biggest brand ambassador, its rockstar, its torchbearer.
Crowd Puller In The Whites
Now that he’s gone, the format bleeds once again, quietly and painfully. Because Test cricket, in all its vintage glory, always needed a hero — someone who brought intensity to every delivery, who made five-day cricket feel like a war of attrition and emotion. That hero was Virat Kohli. And now, there’s no one in sight with a cape to replace him. The void is real, and it’s massive.
Kohli didn’t just play the game — he carried it on his shoulders, keeping it alive in a world obsessed with instant gratification. His farewell isn’t just India’s loss; it’s a global heartbreak. And while he walks away with his head high and heart full, Test cricket is left wondering who will step up next. But maybe, just maybe, that’s what legends do — they leave when no one is ready, and that’s what makes them eternal. He came, he roared, he conquered — and yes, he did it his way.