THE END OF AN ERA

          

Image Credit—NDTV Sports.

No Indian cricket fan would like to remember the 2024-25 Border Gavaskar Trophy. It was a series that literally ended the beautiful era of Indian cricket. Ashwin retired mid-series post the Gabba Test, whereas Rohit and Kohli played their last test games in Melbourne and Sydney, respectively, before announcing retirement in May 2025. It was surely the worst of times.

However, the thing that pained us the most as a cricket fan was the struggle that these two stalwarts of the game were going through in Australia. Virat Kohli scored just 190 runs in 9 innings with an average of a mere 23.75. However, it is pertinent to note that even this 190 includes his 30th and last ton at Perth, wherein he scored 100*. Moreover, apart from his Perth heroics, he managed to score 36 runs in the first innings of the 4th test at Melbourne. This in turn implies that he scored just 54 runs in the remaining 7 innings, which is truly disastrous. In the case of Rohit Sharma, things got even worse than Kohli. Firstly, he missed the first test and was dropped from the final test. Secondly, in the 5 innings that he played in Australia, he scored just 31 runs with an average of 6.20, which is not even expected from a tailender.

However, there are ups and downs in every cricketer's life. Hence, despite the disastrous tour down under, we all were expecting a comeback in the England series. Unfortunately, the same didn't happen, and the two champion cricketers retired silently on Instagram.

The comeback did not happen, but we will always remember the memories that these two gave us over a period of time. One could never forget the historic 2014-15 Border-Gavaskar Trophy wherein Virat took charge of the Indian Test side and hammered 692 runs at an average of 86.50. The twin tons at Adelaide, followed by tons in Melbourne and Sydney, are still fresh in the memories. In the case of Rohit Sharma, it was the 2021 England tour, where he played one of his best knocks with a special ton in the Oval.

Today all of this is just memories, which we can no longer see but can simply feel and cherish. But, yes, whenever we would think about them, a smile would surely come up on our faces.