Former Indian batter, Sanjay Manjrekar is in the news again. Manjrekar is someone who has in the past been critical of players and he does is not afraid of giving some big statements. Be it calling Ravindra
Jadeja “bits and pieces player” or many other instances where he has been brutally open about his views. Today, Sanjay Manjrekar released put up a video on Instagram where he made a few statements about Virat Kohli. Watch the video here.
In the video, Sanjay Manjrekar while praising Joe Root, said that he would have loved for Virat Kohli to continue in the longest format. He said “Well, as Joe Root attains new heights in Test cricket, my mind goes to Virat Kohli. He’s walked away from Tests, and it’s unfortunate that in the five years that he struggled before retiring, he didn’t quite put his heart and soul into finding out the problems as to why he was averaging 31 for five years in Tests,”
Manjrekar made another point telling that if Kohli would have retired from all formats this decision would be fine but since Kohli chose to play One Day cricket this decision disappointed him. “It was okay, Virat Kohli just walked away from cricket, retired from all cricket. But that he’s chosen to play one-day cricket actually disappoints me more, because this is a format which, for a top-order batter, I’ve said before as well, is the easiest format,” he said.
Virat Kohli had a spectacular start to his Test career but the last 5 years was very tough for him. The star batter averaged less than 32 and looked a shadow of himself. He scored a century in the opening Test at Perth and it looked like, Virat of the old was back but things got worse as he ended the series with a flurry of low scores. Virat Kohli retired from Test cricket in May 2025, ending a 14 year Test career in which he scored over 9,000 runs and 30 centuries.
His retirement came as a huge shock to plenty of people as everyone expected him to continue playing Tests, given the love he has for red ball cricket. But unfortunately Virat Kohli announced retirement from longest format. He is currently only part of the ODI side and is aiming for the WC 2027. He has continued his prolific form in one day cricket and has had a stellar career.
Sanjay Manjrekar at the end of his videos also told that watching players like Root, Smith and Kane Williamson continue to thrive in Test cricket fills him with a sense of sadness regarding the exit of Kohli. Smith, Kohli, Root and Williamson were part of the Fab 4. Both Smith and Root have gone past 10,000 runs in Test cricket while Williamson is 600 short of the milestone of 10,000. Virat Kohli retired with over 9,000 Test runs.
