Star India batter Virat Kohli has told the Indian cricket board that he wants to retire from Test cricket, but top officials have asked him to reconsider the decision as well, The Indian Express has reported this.

“He has made up his mind and has informed the board that he is moving on from Test cricket. The BCCI has urged him to rethink as the crucial England tour is coming up. He is yet to revert on the request,” sources said to this newspaper.

However, Virat Kohli’s decision came after Rohit Sharma announced his Test retirement a couple of days ago. Notably, Indian selectors will meet in a few days to pick the team for the five-match Test series in England next month as well. It is learnt that Kohli has been thinking about his Test future since the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in Australia earlier this year, when he faced a poor run after scoring a century in the first Test as well.

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If Kohli wants to retire, then India will have a largely inexperienced middle-order with KL Rahul, Shubman Gill and Yashasvi Jaiswal at the top, and Rishabh Pant later down the order as well. Meanwhile, the selectors were looking to appoint a young player as captain for the new Test cycle, following which Rohit Sharma announced his Test retirement. And, Shubman Gill is the frontrunner to replace Rohit Sharma as Test captain, according to sources as well.

Notably, Kohli has played 123 Tests for India and has smashed 9,230 runs, which came at an average of 46.85. His average dropped down in the last five years, aggregating 1,990 runs in 37 games with three centuries only. During the recent tour of Australia, he finished with an average of 23.75 from five Tests. Out of his eight dismissals on the tour, he got out to deliveries outside off stump on seven occasions as well.

Later, he opined on the disappointment from that tour during an event in March for his IPL team RCB, saying, “I might not have an Australia tour again in me in four years’ time.”

Speaking about the mental pressures after the recent Test failures, he had said, “Once you start taking on the energy and the disappointment from the outside, then you start burdening yourself way more… And then you start thinking about things, like ‘I’ve got two or three days left on this tour, I need to make an impact now’. And you start getting more desperate. That’s something I’ve surely experienced in Australia as well.”

“Because I got a good score in the first Test. I thought, ‘right, let’s go’. There’s going to be another big series for me. It doesn’t turn out that way. For me, it’s just about the acceptance of ‘okay fine, this is what happened. I’m going to be honest with myself. Where do I want to go? What are my energy levels like’,” he again shared.

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However, Virat Kohli has already retired from T20Is after India won the T20 World Cup in the West Indies last year. But, he was in great form during this IPL with 505 runs in 11 matches, including three fifties, which came at a strike rate of 143.46. At the RCB event, he shared how a chat he had with former captain Rahul Dravid helped him realign his mental state about his career as well.

“It pretty much comes down to just the pure joy and enjoyment and love for the game. And as long as that love is intact, I will continue to play the game. I have to be honest about that with myself,” he had said. “(Dravid) said my competitive streak would not allow me to accept it. Maybe one more. Maybe six more months, whatever. So, I think it’s a fine balance. And you have to just pray and hope that you get clarity when it comes.”