Published: Jun 01, 2025, 05:49 PM (IST)
Edited: Jun 01, 2025, 05:49 PM (IST)
Ever since Virat Kohli announced his retirement from Test cricket, a lot has been speculated over the reason behind this decision. Though lot of people suggest that Kohli was trying his best to not become a player who would get dropped from the Test team, others feel he did not find all his challenges motivating enough for him to keep going. However, Virat’s former Royal Challengers Bengaluru teammate AB de Villiers, has now put an end to all this debate with a practical explanation.
de Villiers has spent a lot of time with Virat Kohli, and knew him pretty well. For him, Kohli’s decision to announce his Test retirement was purely a ‘gut feel’.
“He followed his gut feel. I think he has done a lot for cricket around the world over the years. Luckily, we’ll still see him on the cricket field. He will be missed in Test matches, there is no doubt about it, but he leaves (behind) a great legacy with the red ball,” De Villiers said on the sidelines of a NGO Project Mumbai on Saturday.
As veteran players Ravichandran Ashwin, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli have all hung their boots from the longest format of the game, a new era in the Indian Test team is going to begin- which will be filled with young players. AB de Villiers has also shared his excitement to witness the young generation stepping up to take the challenge.
“Yes, it’s time for the younger guys to step up… Shubman Gill taking on the responsibility. There’s lots of talent in India, and largely credit to the IPL for that, (it is) really giving great exposure to some of the youngsters at a very early age. We saw Vaibhav Suryavanshi this year (and) many other youngsters, they come in their first year and they look very mature and ready to play cricket, and it’s a great platform for Indian cricket,” De Villiers said.
“They’ve got to take some responsibility on in England, it’ll be a tough test, but they have all the talent in the world and if they believe, maybe they can achieve something special,” the ex-South Africa skipper further said.
A young Indian Test team is going to tour England for five-match test series, set to begin June 20. Shubman Gill has been named the captain of the red-ball team with Rishabh pant being named as his deputy. This tour is going to begin the world test Championship (WTC) 225-27 cycle for both the teams.
Indian squad for England tour:
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.
