The news of Virat Kohli announcing retirement from Test cricket on Monday made headlines across the globe. The 36-year-old widely regarded as a torchbearer of Test cricket received widespread admiration for the same not just from England and Australian media but also from the New York Times.
Apart from being the face of Indian cricket, Kohli emerged as a universal sports icon and with 272 million followers on Instagram remains one of the most followed athletes around the globe. Given his popularity, his unexpected retirement with the England tour just a month away, even caught the attention of New York Times.
The New York Times paid a fitting tribute to Indian batting in an article headlined “ made one billion Indians dream again and helped save Test cricket.”
“Eyes focused, collar turned up, an armband on the left and an armband tattoo on the right, the iconic wrist-twirl of the bat. Virat Kohli, the world’s most famous cricketer, at the crease in whites, brought balance, poise and ferocity — a sight to behold unless you were in the opposition XI,” The New York Times via The Athletic wrote about Kohli.
Writing on The Times London, former England captain Mike Atherton began with what Kohli brought to the game. “Farewell then to Test cricket for one of the best, most charismatic and influential players of my lifetime. Virat Kohli’s retirement from the five-day game was anticipated, with reports emanating from India about his intentions late last week, but that does not lessen the magnitude of the moment: the going of a figure who continued to hold Test cricket dearest of all, and to fight his country’s corner with relentless determination and pride, signals the end of an era in Indian cricket,” he wrote.
Atherton then went on to make special mention about Kohli’s charisma and placing it only behind Viv Richards, and Shane Warne. “More than anything, Kohli had great presence as a cricketer; you could not take your eyes off him. He was one of the four most charismatic cricketers I have seen, alongside Viv Richards, Imran Khan and Shane Warne. He was sometimes no angel, of course, as the shoulder bump on young Sam Konstas in the last year’s Boxing Day Test would concede, and he could be petulant and short-tempered, but the ledger is very much in his favour. The game has been enriched by his presence,” Atherton commented.
In BBC website, former England seamer Steve Finn recalled how he faced up a then 17-year-old Kohli in an Under-19 fixture.
“What I remember most vividly is how keen he was to engage in a battle with us. In age-group cricket, some players are there to score their runs so they progress through the system. Not Kohli. He was there to win. It was this trait that elevated him above his peers and served him so well throughout a Test career that has carried the hopes of 1.4bn people,” Finn wrote in a column for the BBC.
