Did BCCI influence Virat Kohli & Rohit Sharma for Test retirement? Rajeev Shukla spills beans

When Rohit Sharma dropped his Test retirement bombshell during the IPL, cricket fans were stunned. But what really got people talking was when Virat Kohli followed suit just days later. The back-to-back announcements felt too coordinated. Whispers started doing the rounds – did the BCCI orchestrate this? Were India’s two biggest stars being pushed out the door? Or did the new BCCI SOPs forced them to make such hard calls?

BCCI Vice-President Rajeev Shukla has finally addressed these rumors head-on, and his message is clear: absolutely not.

“I want to make it very clear once and for all. We are all feeling the absence of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli. The decision to retire was made by Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli on their own,” Shukla told ANI in London. “It is the policy of the BCCI that we never tell any player to retire. It was their call. They took the decision independently. We will always consider them as legendary batters. It’s very good for us that both of them are available for ODIs.”

Rohit-Kohli retirements were longtime coming?

Both Kohli and Rohit had been under pressure after India’s recent Test struggles. The 2024 home series loss to New Zealand still stings, and the Border-Gavaskar Trophy (BGT) defeat in Australia was fresh in everyone’s minds.

There were whispers about the team needing a generational change as well. The writing seemed to be on the wall, and when two senior players quit almost simultaneously, there seem to be a motive.

Rohit, particularly, was perhaps asked to relinquish the captaincy after horrible form with the bat. Meanwhile, Kohli, retiring before the 10,000-run mark, was a huge surprise.

But the new BCCI policies might have played a part. He was against them, but Gautam Gambhir still backs them. Kohli, despite being younger at 36, had been struggling with consistency in the longest format too. His last few series showed glimpses of the old magic, but the runs weren’t flowing like they used to. The man who once averaged over 50 in Tests had seen that number drop to the mid-40s.