A Test Series Without Kohli, Sharma, Ashwin And Shami!

Who would have imagined that India would be playing a home Test in October 2025 without Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Ravichandran Ashwin and Mohammed Shami? It’s a reality Indian cricket has accepted though Shami (64 Tests, 229 welts) is yet to retire. Once the team management hinted that he may not be in the scheme of things, Ashwin (106 Tests, 537 wickets) bid adieu to international cricket in the course of the five Test series in Australia. And after the series, Kohli (123 Tests, 9230 runs) and Sharma (67 Tests, 4301 runs) followed suit. Kohli played his last at Sydney and Sharma stepped back from the team owing to lack of form after the Melbourne Test. Kohli was India’s bulwark and run machine at the middle order and Sharma was sort of an unconventional opener looking to go after the leather from the word go. Ashwin was of course a great match winner for India at home. It’s not just these three, the selectors had conveyed that Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane were expendable and would find it difficult to get a recall and so Pujara announced his retirement from all cricket. Rahane has not yet and he has chosen to play another season of domestic cricket. Of course, Mahendra Singh Dhoni retired a long time ago. Clearly the 0-3 defeat in the home series against New Zealand and nothing much to show for displays in Australia hastened the exit from the centre stage by Kohli and Sharma. Indian cricket has seen the captaincy mantle piece change from Sharma to Shubman Gill. Ravindra Jadeja and KL Rahul are the last two remaining of the Kohli-Sharma era still playing Test cricket. But what a change in a short span of time!