Virat Kohli reveals the harsh truth behind quitting India’s test captaincy

Whenever we discuss the greatest captain India ever had, Virat Kohli’s name comes in the first place. Under his captaincy, India achieved many successes in the longest format. India defeated South Africa and New Zealand at Home, while defeating Australia in Australia for the first time in cricket history in 2018. India also made their first-ever WTC 2019-2021 final appearance. In 2021, India also took a 2-1 lead in England in the first 4 games of the 5-match test series. But a day after losing the series 1-2 on the South Africa tour, Virat Kohli took over the test captaincy. This is what happened when he took over the T20I captaincy after the T20 World Cup 2021 and was removed from the ODI captaincy.

With this, Virat Kohli's golden period of captaincy, that was going on for 7 years, came to an end, in which India had won 40 out of 68 test matches. Many reasons were given for Virat Kohli to leave the captaincy at that time, but the clear reason is not known to date.

Today, after almost 4 years, Virat Kohli has broken his silence for the first time on leaving the test captaincy. He said that India achieved many remarkable successes under his captaincy, but the responsibilities of captaincy started affecting him. When his performance started declining, and India missed out on winning the test series in South Africa, Kohli felt that the time had come to step down from the captaincy.

“I ended up being in a place where I became the focal point of our batting unit and the focal point of leadership. I didn’t realise how much of a load both those things will present in my daily life, to be honest. But because I was so driven to just make sure that Indian cricket stays on top, I didn’t really pay attention to it. And that’s precisely why by the time I left captaincy, I was completely spent. There was nothing left in the tank. I was completely consumed by it. It was gruesome,” Kohli said during the RCB Innovation Lab on Tuesday.

Virat Kohli first captained Team India during the Adelaide test against Australia in 2014, when the then captain MS Dhoni was ruled out of the match due to a thumb injury. Virat Kohli scored centuries in both innings of that match, due to which the Indian team came very close to defeating Australia in that match, but a dramatic batting collapse stood in the way. This was the last series of MS Dhoni's test career. In the same year, Kohli guided India to a historic series win in Sri Lanka since 1993. This was Kohli's first test series as regular captain. From there, the Kohli-Ravi Shastri partnership took off. India won the ICC Test mace for five consecutive years and reached another high when they beat Australia in Australia to win the 2018-19 Border-Gavaskar Trophy.

However, during this time, Kohli started losing his form. His bat did not score centuries for almost 3 years, even though the team also lost in the World Test Championship 2021 finals against New Zealand, and the South Africa series, due to which he decided to leave the captaincy.

“The reason you’re given a leadership role is that people believe you can take on more and still manage it. In many ways, leadership is more about management than even coaching. It’s about understanding the people playing with you and for you, and figuring out how to get the best out of them. To do that, you constantly have to be in a space where you’re not focused on yourself. You don’t even think about whether someone is going to ask you, ‘Are you okay?’ That thought doesn’t even cross your mind,” added Kohli.

“But towards the end of my captaincy tenure, I did look back and realise that no one had really asked me that question for almost nine years – ‘How are you doing?’”

Furthermore, Kohli also praised former head coach Rahul Dravid and Vikram Rathour, who provided strong mental support during one of the toughest phases of his career.

"Rahul bhai understood that because he had experienced it himself at the highest level. Vikram had been around for years too. They understood what I was feeling and genuinely took care of me mentally. That put me in a space where I could enjoy my cricket again,” Kohli said.