What the BCCI got wrong in letting Virat Kohli walk away from Tests

There was a time: before hashtags and hostilities, when cricket on this subcontinent belonged to purer minds. I was lucky to grow up in that Karachi. A city where cricket was not a proxy for politics but a portal into grace, grit, and genius.

Our coaches didn’t teach us whom to cheer based on flags; they taught us to revere

Sunil Gavaskar

if we wanted to learn the art of attrition, and

Gordon Greenidge

if we sought the fury of a square cut in full bloom. We were taught that genius bowed to no border. Which is why, today, I feel no conflict in mourning

Virat Kohli

’s exit. In times like these, when vitriol comes easier than virtue, this piece is not written in protest or praise. It is written in remembrance. For the game we once loved.

And the way we were once taught to love it.
There are English summers, and then there are English summers that contain

Rohit Sharma

and Virat Kohli. The former are pleasant; the latter, unforgettable. This year, the roses will still bloom, and the Barmy Army will still sing. But the air will be thinner, the echoes fainter, because this is a summer robbed of its lords. First, Rohit Sharma stepped away — quietly, gracefully. And now, so has Virat Kohli.