Vaughan stated that he was looking forward to seeing Kohli playing in England next month.
Former England cricketer Michael Vaughan lauded Virat Kohli on his amazing Test career after the Indian great announced his retirement from the traditional format of the game on May 12. Kohli announced on Instagram, bringing down the curtains on a 14-year career.
Kohli retired with 9230 runs in 123 Tests with 30 centuries and 31 fifties to his name. However, his real impact came as the captain of the Indian team, where he led in 68 tests and won 40 of them, marking a prolific win percentage of 58.82.
Test cricket would have been a "far blander place" without Virat Kohli, according to former England captain Michael Vaughan, who has said that the sport would have been less appealing without Kohli in recent years.
“In more than 30 years, I don’t believe there is any individual who has done more for the Test format than Virat. When he took the captaincy just over a decade ago, I was worried India was losing interest in Test cricket. MS Dhoni was one of the great white-ball players, but it felt like he captained a Test team that 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 have 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 wrote in his column for The Telegraph.
The 36-year-old averaged 42.36 while playing in 28 Test matches against England, scoring 1991 runs in 50 innings. Kohli participated in 17 Test matches against the hosts in England out of those 28 Test matches, scoring 1096 runs, including two hundreds and five half-centuries.
Vaughan recalled the fierce battle between the two and expressed his hope that Kohli will play in the forthcoming England trip, even though England spinner James Anderson claimed seven wickets in Test matches.
“All of his tours of England were up against James Anderson and Stuart Broad, so I was really looking forward to seeing him take on a new England attack. His battles with Anderson, not least at Edgbaston in 2018, were magnificent, a great spectacle. It was a proper heavyweight contest, with two world beaters going up against each other. It was so enthralling. Jimmy often had the wood over Kohli, and with him gone, I thought he’d come out and play with a real flamboyancy this summer and go on the attack. We haven’t seen much of that from him in England; it’s been more about his defensive strength, skill, touch, technique, and patience. In other parts of the world, he played with unbelievable aggression,” Vaughan added.
The former England captain also discussed his belief that, had Rohit Sharma not announced his retirement from Test cricket a few days prior, India would have given him the captaincy for the England tour.
“India will miss him. I do wonder if he fancied another crack at the captaincy but wasn’t given that opportunity. I think if he wanted it, I would have given it to him for this tour because there was some unfinished business in England. They would have won that series in 2021 if they had not left because of COVID, and by the time they came back a year later, he had stepped down and England was a different side,” wrote Vaughan.
Virat Kohli will continue to play ODIs for India, as he had already retired from T20Is after India won the T20 World Cup 2024.