Will Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli Join R Ashwin in Test Retirement Next Year?

Ever since assuming the role of India's all-format captain in March 2022, Rohit Sharma has demonstrated his willingness to shoulder responsibility. He has consistently led by example in white-ball cricket, showing unwavering determination even in the face of adversity, as evidenced by his performance in the nail-biting final of the 50-over World Cup against Australia.

In the five-day game, he hasn’t been as creative as a leader or inspirational as a batter, more so since the start of the ongoing season. India have lost four of their last five Tests under Rohit, including three at home to New Zealand, and his own form has been anything but special. Considering the sudden retirement from international cricket of Ravichandran Ashwin at the end of the Brisbane Test on Wednesday, tongues have begun to wag about what the future holds for Rohit. And Virat Kohli.

The skipper's only half-century in his last 13 innings came in the third week of October against the Kiwis in Bengaluru. Either side of that, his bat has fallen chillingly cold. A combination of a poor run of results and the lack of meaningful scores have increased the scrutiny on him and like he did in Bengaluru when he admitted to an error in judgement in batting first and seeing his team slip to 46 all out, he acknowledged after the Gabba draw that he needs to pull up his socks.

In the same breath, Rohit held forth on why he believes a turnaround isn’t far away. "I have not batted well, there is no harm in accepting that," he observed. "But I know what is in my mind, how I am preparing myself. All those boxes are very much ticked. It is just about spending as much time as possible - I am pretty sure I am just there. As long as my mind, my body, my feet are moving well, I'm pretty happy with how things are panning out. It's been a while since I've got big runs, but I'm feeling good about myself."

Retirement is a very personal call, no one has the right to impose it on anybody. Ashwin went out on his own terms, in the middle of a series with two games to play. Rohit can’t be goaded and hounded into calling it quits, but if the selectors deem fit, they can hold him accountable. India’s chances of making it to the final of the World Test Championship for a third consecutive cycle hang by a slender thread and they kick off the next cycle with a five-Test series in England from June. The next two Tests in Australia will go a long way towards how the future shapes up – whether Rohit is around in Old Blighty to break in a new captain and slowly move away, or whether the decision makers feel a new cycle warrants a fresh start, a new man at the helm, a new philosophy and mantra.

Rohit is acutely aware that he must start to move into the blue in the Test runs' column. If he doesn't, then for all his affability, he will be pushed into a corner. As will Kohli, the man he succeeded as captain, whose second-innings century in Perth which came when the base had already been established by Yashasvi Jaiswal and KL Rahul is increasingly beginning to look like an aberration.

They hold that a dismissal is a dismissal, an out is an out, no matter how that transpires. Rohit has been dismissed in three different fashions this series to three different kinds of deliveries, but Kohli has fallen to the oldest trick in the book – the ball delivered in the corridor outside off that he simply can't resist flirting with. Whether that stems from the desperation to feel bat on ball or the perceived need to dictate terms to the bowler is up for debate. What isn’t debatable is that he has turned the clock back to the darkest phase in his life as a Test cricketer, the 2014 tour of England when he was constantly caught behind the wickets during ten innings that yielded a paltry 134 runs. After all, he has been dismissed four times in a row in the last four weeks in that same fashion.

Kohli might be younger and fitter than Rohit but that doesn't give him an out pass. He knows that he too needs to start pulling his weight, and quickly. Otherwise, he will also force the selectors and the team management to consider what the way forward is. India won’t want to lose two of their premier batters at the same time, but that will be dictated solely by what returns the duo produce over the next two Tests and three weeks.