Former India cricketer Ravi Shastri shared his thoughts on what the future holds for ace India batter Virat Kohli. Virat Kohli, 36, endured one of the worst calendar years in Test career when it came to 2024-25.
In the 2024-25 season, Kohli played 10 Tests and made 382 runs at an average of 22.47 with one century and one fifty to his name. In the recent Border-Gavaskar Trophy five-match Test series in Australia, Kohli managed 190 runs despite a century in the first Test.
This has raised questions about Kohli’s future in international cricket and especially Test cricket. At 36 years of age, Kohli doesn’t have much time and his last 5 years have been below par with the standards he set in his youth.
Ravi Shastri, who shared a close bond with Virat Kohli as head coach of the Indian team, stated that Kohli still has 2-3 years in him and could give back to the Indian team. He said that Kohli could guide the youngster coming into the Indian team before hanging up his gloves.
“This now takes my mind back to [Sachin] Tendulkar, [and] to Brian Lara. When you evaluate their careers and see where Virat is, I think Virat still has it in him for the next couple of years to do precisely what Ricky said.
To get the youngsters coming through the ranks there. Help them out. Share knowledge. Be part of the dressing room. Contribute to the team. And if your form is still good and you're enjoying it, stay there. Otherwise, it will be time to move on and your mind will tell you to do that,” Shastri said in ICC Review.
Shastri looked at Sachin Tendulkar as a player, who helped inexperienced players in the final years of his career.
“The same thing happened with Sachin. I think he had to play a similar role to Ricky. If you look at his last couple of years also, he himself would say he was not at his best. But he was playing well enough and wanted to contribute,” said Shastri.
Shastri felt that Kohli could still contribute to Indian cricket as both a player and a senior figure in the dressing room by mentoring players such as Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubman Gill, Rishabh Pant, and Nitish Reddy.
“So, I think the contributing factor to this team is transition and the youngsters coming through the ranks. If you look at Jaiswal, he's 23. You look at Shubham Gill is 22, 23 [25 years]. Nitish Reddy is 21. There are a lot of players. Rishabh Pant, he is still very young. He is 25 or 26. [27 years]. So there are a lot of guys there who can benefit from the experience of a player of Virat Kohli's calibre,” Shastri said.
Shastri also advised Kohli and Rohit Sharma, India's Test skipper who averaged 6.2 in the BGT 2024-25 series, to take advantage of any opportunities to play red-ball domestic cricket.
“If there's a gap for them, I think they should go back and play some domestic cricket and see how it is. Because when you play Test match cricket for that length of time, it's important to play domestic cricket for two reasons: You're abreast with the current generation (and) you can contribute to that younger generation with your experience.
And more importantly, you get to play spin more than you will ever play. So if you see India as recorded, India on turning tracks is not the greatest. If you have quality spinners in the opposition, they can trouble you. And they have troubled India,” Shastri stated.
Coming to their futures, Shastri stated that it was up to Kohli and Rohit to decide their fate. He stated that their future depends on how hungry they are to continue scoring runs in Test cricket.
“They might have been lucky to get over a couple of series, but you saw how New Zealand exposed them before coming to Australia. So I would leave it on that. And plus, it's the hunger and desire. When you're in your 30s, one is 36, the other is 38. They would know how hungry they are,” Shastri concluded.
(ICC inputs)
