Virat Kohli’s retirement from Test cricket has closed the book on a storied red-ball career, and with it, a personal saga that was deeply intertwined with England — a country that tested him, transformed him.
Having toured England three times at distinctly different phases of his career — as a rising star, as the world’s premier Test batter, and as a senior statesman battling the weight of expectations — Kohli’s journey in the UK encapsulates both his evolution and his enduring quest for mastery.
That quest, however, will now remain unfinished, as the 36-year-old bows out just days before India’s squad for the upcoming five-Test series was to be named.
Here’s a look at Kohli’s complex, compelling Test timeline in England:
2014: Baptism by Fire
At 25, Virat Kohli arrived in England on the back of a successful tour of New Zealand, where he had amassed 215 runs in four innings. Expectations were high for India’s rising star — but the tour turned into a nightmare.
Kohli managed just 134 runs across 10 innings at a dismal average of 13.40, with a highest score of 39. England’s veteran duo, James Anderson and Stuart Broad, ruthlessly exposed his vulnerability outside the off-stump. Anderson, in particular, tormented him, dismissing him four times and forcing a string of tentative pokes and edges. The cricketing world saw the cracks in Kohli’s technique, as the moving ball in English conditions proved too much, too soon.
2018: Redemption of the King
Between 2016 and 2019, Virat Kohli scaled Test cricket’s highest peaks, amassing 4,208 runs in 43 matches at a staggering average of 66.79 — and the 2018 England tour was its crown jewel.
Determined to bury the ghosts of 2014, Kohli poured hours into fixing his technique and mindset. The result was a masterclass in grit and brilliance: 593 runs in five Tests at an average of 59.30, including two centuries and three fifties — the highest by any batter in the series.
Not once did he fall to James Anderson. Instead, Kohli handled him with assured footwork and calculated aggression, turning a former tormentor into just another challenge. His roaring celebration at Edgbaston, after a gritty century, became the symbol of a man who had rewritten his script in England.
Though India lost the series 4–1, Kohli’s lone-warrior effort stood out as one of the finest individual performances on English soil.
2021/22: The Fallibility Phase
By 2021, Virat Kohli had entered his first prolonged slump — a stark contrast to his previous dominance. For the first time in years, the cricketing world saw the mortal side of a man who had delivered near-superhuman consistency.
The old nemesis returned: the off-stump trap and England’s relentless swing and seam. Kohli managed 249 runs across nine innings at an average of 27.76, with two fifties and a couple of gritty 40s — solid, but far from his usual standards.
His duel with James Anderson flared up once again, with the veteran pacer dismissing him twice. Though Kohli fought with trademark intensity, he couldn’t recreate the redemption arc of 2018. This time, England had the edge.
Virat Kohli's overall numbers in England — 1,096 runs in 17 Tests at an average of 33.21, with two centuries and five fifties — don't fully reflect the skill, fight, and flair he brought to some of the toughest batting conditions in the world.
England tested him like no other place — from exposing his raw edges in 2014 to witnessing his peak in 2018, and finally revealing his human side in 2021.
Each tour told a different story; each innings, a new layer to his legacy.
Now, with Kohli stepping away just before another English summer, the question lingers: Was there one final roar left in the land that tested and shaped him?
We’ll never know — but his legacy in whites is already sealed in the annals of cricketing greatness.
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