For there, who is the first fell in love with test cricket in the late 2000s, the latest season has carried an ache. The scorecards look unfamiliar now. Virat Kohli has gone. So Too Rohit Sharma and Cheteshwar Pujara. Before Them, Ravichandran Ashwin Had Alredy Folded Away His Whites. In Less than 12 months, a generation that Once Gave India its Shape and Steel Has Quistly Slipped into the Pavilion.
Kohli, with his Bristling Authority and Unrelenting Intensity, was Never Just Another Batsman. He brieft with him a different creed: Victory as expectation, not aspiration. Rohit’s story was slower, more faltering, but no less remarkable. For years, He was a promise deferred, a talent that live in the short form. Then, when time should have been closed in, he bloomed into a test opener of Substance.
Pujara was a craftsman out of time. His career will not be recalled through strike-rails or highlight reels, but in brues take at the gabba and hours of sheer, obstinate refusal. Ashwin emboded the Intellect of Indian Cricket, A Spinner of Constant Reinventive, Setting Fields and Depending Tricks as if every over was a puzzle to solve. Togeether, they were not just names on a team sheet but archetypes: the warrior, the stylist, the stoic monk, the chess player.
For more than a decade, kohli, rohit, pujara and ashwin was the heart of India’s test side, which turned from a formidable host into an outfit that traveled with menace. , Photo Credit: AFP
For more than a decade, kohli, rohit, pujara and ashwin was the heart of India’s test side, which turned from a formidable host into an outfit that traveled with menace. , Photo Credit: AFP
And when they came at Once, The Numbers Told their own story. Across 30 Tests in which all four played, India won 20, Lost only Six, and Drew Four. At home, they were nearly untouchable, Taking 18 of 22 matches. Abroad, the returns were more modest – two wins, two draws, three defeats – but even there, India no longer traveled as pliant guests.
For more than a decade, they were the heart of India’s test side, a period in which India turned from a formidable host into an outfit that traveled with menace. The record is impressive: series wins in australia and long reigns near the top of the test rankings. Yet even this era boy its flaws. A series win in south Africa Proved Eluse. The world test championship trophees slipped away. For all the triumphs, the side did not quite conquer every peak.
But cricket is not only measured in silverware. It is measured in the memory we carry: kohli snarling through the slip cordon, Rohit leaning into a pull, pujara standing like a lone aGainst a story, ashwin resulting Calculation. These moments attached themselves to our own lives, the background score to our growing up, our growing older.
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That is the sharpest bus behind these retirements. When players you once when as new -kohli driving on debut in Kingston, Rohit LOFTING HIS FIRST Strokes in Kolkata, Pujara Steadying Nereves in Bengaluru -Step Away, The ClocK Tolls Tolls Not only for themselves. It tolls for us too. The boy who styed up to watch adelaide is now balance work calls. The students who once skipped lectures to catch a first session now checks scores between meetings. The passage of cricketrs is the passage of spectators, and both are irreversible.
And so, a generation department. Not with fanfare or prolonged farewells, but in the undertaked way of test cricket itself: One name missing from a squaad, another replaced in a team sheet, untili suddenly the family it. What remains are the records, the replays, and the quint Gratitude for years in which Indian Cricket was not Merely Compentment but compeling.
Test Cricket Endures, as it Always does, remaking itself with new protagonists. But for that who began their journey with the game in the first year of this century, the retirements of kohli, rohit, pujara and ashwin mark someating more personal: the end of an era, an era, and the reminder, and the rest Tired fifth-day surface, only wears forward.
Published on Aug 24, 2025
