Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma face heat for not taking Ranji Trophy seriously
Former India cricketer Aakash Chopra criticized the appearance of Virat Kohli and other players participating in solitary Ranji Trophy matches, calling it a “punishment posting.” While Kohli is playing in Delhi’s current match against Railways, many others who played in the previous round have skipped this one.
After India’s 1-3 loss in the 2024-25 Border-Gavaskar Trophy, the BCCI reportedly asked players not involved in international games to play domestically. While players like Rohit Sharma, Shubman Gill, and Jadeja featured in the last round, some, including Kohli, are playing in the ongoing games. Chopra mentioned this in a video on his YouTube channel, noting that the players seem to be just marking their attendance.
“Virat Kohli is ready to play at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi. He was previously training with Sanjay Bangar in Alibaug, where they focused on addressing his back-foot and outside-off issues. After working on these aspects, he is now back playing at the Ranji Trophy level,” he said (6:40).
“He’s playing, but the others aren’t. In the end, everyone else has just done the bare minimum. Virat hadn’t played before, so now he’s in this match. The others have only shown up as a formality. It almost feels like a punishment posting, but first-class cricket shouldn’t be viewed that way,” Chopra added.
“Smith recently scored a century (against Sri Lanka), bringing his tally to 35 centuries in 205 innings. Joe Root has 36 centuries but needed 278 innings. When comparing their strike rates, or the number of innings it takes them to score a hundred, Smith is ahead of Root. But then there’s Kane Williamson, who has scored 33 centuries in just 186 innings, boasting a better strike rate than both Smith and Root,” he said (8:15).
“Now, if we look at Virat Kohli, he’s played 210 innings, meaning he’s played five more innings than Smith, but has scored five fewer centuries. Unfortunately, Kohli now has the lowest strike rate among them, with only three centuries in the last five years,” Chopra concluded.
Kohli’s rate of scoring Test centuries is still better than Root’s. The former India captain averages one century every seven innings, while Root takes an average of 7.72 innings per century.
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