Virat Kohli’s decision to step down as the captain of the Indian Test cricket team has shocked many fans. Quite a few members of the cricket universe considered him an ambassador of Test cricket because of the passion and the energy that he brought to the field while playing in the whites. Now, Ricky Ponting revealed some details of Kohli’s decision to step down.
During the first half of IPL 2021, the Royal Challengers Bangalore battled the Delhi Capitals at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad. RCB won that match by one run. Around that game, the then RCB captain Virat Kohli spoke with the coach of the Delhi Capitals team, Ricky Ponting. They chatted about the captaincy of the Indian cricket team.
Ricky was surprised that Kohli made up his mind to quit Test cricket captaincy because in April 2021 Virat told him that he would only step down as the captain of the white-ball teams. However, after the ICC World Test Championship series between the Indian cricket team and the South African cricket team, Kohli informed everyone on social media that he would not continue as Test captain going forward.
“It was a surprise that Virat Kohli stepped down from Test captaincy, mainly we had a chat during the first part of IPL 2021, he was talking about stepping down from white ball captaincy & continuing in Tests as he loved Test cricket,” the ICC website quoted Ponting as saying.
Virat Kohli is on the verge of breaking the record of Ricky Ponting
Virat Kohli has scored 70 centuries in all formats of international cricket so far. He has not scored a ton since November 2019, but he is still number three on the all-time list of players with the most centuries across the three formats of international cricket. The number one name is Sachin Tendulkar who scored 100 centuries.
Former Australian cricket team captain Ricky Ponting is currently number two with 71 hundreds. Kohli still has more years of international cricket left in him, and many fans believe that he will easily break Ponting’s record. It will be interesting to see when Kohli ends his drought of centuries.
