Ravi Shastri discusses struggling Virat Kohli’s future in Test cricket, says he still has a role to play

Former Indian head coach Ravi Shastri has shed light on Virat Kohli’s future in Test cricket, stating he still has a role to play. Shastri said Kohli should take a leaf out of Sachin Tendulkar and Brian Lara’s book and he should look to guide the young players on the right path in this transitional phase for the team.

Kohli has been averaging 30.73 in his last 39 Test matches since 2020. The veteran batter didn’t have a great tour Downunder, managing 190 runs in five Test matches against Australia in the BGT at 23.75.

Barring scoring a century in the second innings at Perth, Kohli had a mundane run throughout the series as his penchant for flirting with outside off-stump deliveries led to his downfall.

“The same thing happened with Sachin. I think he had to play a similar role to Ricky. If you look at his last couple of years also, he himself would say he was not at his best. But he was playing well enough and wanted to contribute,” the former India coach Ravi Shastri said on ICC Review.

“So I think the contributing factor to this team is transition and the youngsters coming through the ranks. If you look at Jaiswal, he’s 23. You look at Shubham Gill is 22, 23 [25 years]. Nitish Reddy is 21. There are a lot of players. Rishabh Pant, he is still very young. He is 25 or 26. [27 years]. So there are a lot of guys there who can benefit from the experience of a player of Virat Kohli’s caliber,” the 62-year-old added.

On the other hand, former Australian captain Ricky Ponting concurred with Ravi Shastri and gave his own example of how he managed his career towards the fag end.

“I did play for maybe two years longer than I should have. But that wasn’t anything to do with me. I continued to play on to try and help the younger group of players coming through, sort of integrate into international cricket and almost be like a coach and a senior figure around the team to help them through because Mike Hussey was retiring as well.

“And [I thought] we’re going to be left with not a lot of experienced guys, but guys like Smith, Warner, Lyon had all these young guys coming in at once,” he added.

Kohli will look to be at his best in the upcoming Champions Trophy.