The Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 resumes tomorrow. And all the eyes will be on Virat Kohli. That isn’t just because the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) host the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) but rather due to the fact that it’ll be Kohli’s first match since announcing his retirement from Test cricket.
RCB on Virat Kohli’s mind
A couple of days after the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced that IPL 2025 will be halted, Kohli took to Instagram and announced his retirement from the longest format of the game. Ever since then, he’s been the talking point of world cricket. And tomorrow he’ll be in action for the first time since.
RCB Director of Cricket, Mo Bobat, says that Kohli doesn’t want any special attention on him. Everyone is already talking about his retirement, and the last thing he wants is for his RCB teammates to do the same. He just wants to win that IPL 2025 trophy.
“The first thing to say is, Virat Kohli’s just business as usual. There’s enough of the public and nation’s attention on him; he doesn’t want any more of that. He just wants to get on with business; he is usually ambitious about what we can achieve with RCB. That’s his focus,” Bobat told the press in Bengaluru.
The former England performance director has seen Kohli up close at RCB but also as an opponent. And Bobat narrates what it was like as an opponent.
Gladiator in Whites
“I would like to say, though, that he should be incredibly proud of what he’s done as a Test player for India. RCB as a franchise, we are all incredibly proud of what every one of our players does in an India shirt, but in particular him. To play 120-plus Test matches and to score nearly 10,000 runs is no mean feat.
Also, as a captain, his record, a 60% win percentage or something like that as captain, again, no mean feat. I can also talk from my previous role as an Englishman working in the English system. He was someone you never wanted to play against.
He was always the batter you wanted to get out. You knew that if he was either in the pavilion to come or at the crease, you were in trouble. Some of my fondest memories of watching Test cricket involve him.
I’ll never forget the 2018 India series in England. The Test at Edgbaston, watching James Anderson and him do battle like two gladiators. I think James Anderson must have bowled nine overs on the trot at him. It was two of the best players in the world doing their thing. That’s what he’s about. He’s about those special moments, those inspiring moments.
He did that as captain, as a player. We’re all really proud of him. I’m sure the fans will show him lots of love this week when they see him again. But just to go back to where I started, he’s business as usual. We all are. He’s spoken to a few of us about things in the last few weeks, but you know what he’s like. He’s pretty clear-minded, so he’s clear on what he wants to do.”
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