PLAINSPEAK: Celebrity commentator Ravi Shastri opens up on inglorious exit of Virat Kohli from Test cricket

Former India director, cricket operations, and motivational coach Ravi Shastri never minces words. On Wednesday, a teaser of his interview with a big sports TV channel was put out. Sure enough, legend commentator Shastri spoke on the abrupt end of Virat Kohli’s Test career and how the whole episode has been handled badly by the Indian cricket board. For sure, it also includes the current Indian coach Gautam Gambhir and chairman of selection committee, Ajit Agarkar.

It is very easy for Agarkar to have told a press conference recently, Kohli had communicated in April that he no longer wished to play Test cricket for India. This was very much like the HR head in a company accepting an employee’s resignation and not once asking him reasons for leaving. Likewise, in some organisations, an exit interview is just a formality. It’s done for the sake of maintaining records.

What Shastri said on Wednesday and went out as a video clip was smart: “When you go, that’s when people will realise how bigger a player he was. I feel said that Virat Kohli’s retirement gone from Test cricket. The way he has gone, it could have been handled better. They should have better communication,” said Shastri. More emphatic, when India lost the BGT Series badly to Australia in January 2025, Shastri said if he had anything to do with Indian cricket, he would have ensured Kohli was the captain again.

All the comments from Ravi Shastri, a commentator and expert par excellence reveals the underbelly in Indian cricket, of how three top Test cricketers, R.Ashwin, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli left without a proper farewell and even a ‘thank you’ note. The ‘new’ Indian Test team under captain Shubman Gill is already in England. So, the timing of Shastri’s interview on TV, which will be put out in a few days’ time is good. After the madness of the Indian Premier League, focus had to return on Test cricket. It hurts to see India are not in the WTC finals where Australia versus South Africa at The Lords is on.

Twice, India were in the ICC Test Championship finals, with India losing to New Zealand on a rain-hit sixth day in Southampton in 2021 and then India losing to Australia in 2023, again in England. That India failed to make it to the finale this time seems to have been forgotten. For those who jump and say Shastri and Virat Kohli never won a big trophy for India, don’t look at things with a myopic vision. Shastri has no agendas, and he has worked with Indian cricket in responsible roles, first as director and then as a ‘hands-on’ coach.

Today, he has every right to talk on Kohli being denied a farewell and how he is the favourite whipping boy of many on social media as well as mainstream media. It is also well-known, the elevation of Shubman Gill is a desperate gamble in the name of elevating youth and building a team for the future. To take the name of Gill in the same breath as Kohli and Rohit is wrong at this point of time. What the two former India captains had achieved before being handed over captaincy was massive. Gill’s records in Indian Test cricket are pale in comparison, including prosaic performances in the  BGT Series in January 2025.

Back to Virat Kohli, he will be backed by Shastri as he knows him best. There is a helpless tone in Shastri’s voice as he speaks on the topic. Kohli packed up after RCB won the IPL Trophy in Ahmedabad. For no rhyme or reason, he has also faced flak for the stampede at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru last week where lives were lost in a stampede and many got injured as well. Sadly, the blame games are on and some morons on social media and media are questioning why Virat Kohli did not go to the hospital to visit families of those injured. Think sensibly, had Kohli gone to any hospital, there would have been one more stampede.

As for Virat Kohli, Anushka Sharma and the family flying out to Britain, it’s his life. He can stay wherever he wants as a free citizen of India. For those who think Kohli may go and watch the Indians play five Tests in England, I don’t see that happening. The environment created by the BCCI gang was hostile. Well done, Shaz for taking up the Kohli topic.