{"id":169199,"date":"2026-05-18T19:21:30","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T00:51:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/?p=169199"},"modified":"2026-05-18T19:21:30","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T00:51:30","slug":"sanjay-manjrekar-disappointed-virat-kohli-quit-tests-must-know-deep-down-that-ipl-isnt-the-highest-level","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/?p=169199","title":{"rendered":"Sanjay Manjrekar: Disappointed Virat Kohli quit Tests, must know deep down that IPL isn\u2019t the highest level"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"content-body-70994656\" itemprop=\"articleBody\">Former India international Sanjay Manjrekar said that he was disappointed to see Virat Kohli retire from Test cricket last year.<\/p>\n<p>Manjrekar was responding to Kohli saying it was an honour to compete at the \u201chighest level\u201d after scoring a century for Royal Challengers Bengaluru against Kolkata Knight Riders.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The former Indian international, however, suggested that the IPL was not the highest level. \u201c The IPL is a domestic tournament, it\u2019s not a World Cup tournament, where you have 125 Indian players playing. So it\u2019s not international players, there are a lot of raw bowlers,\u201d he told        <b>Sportstar\u2019s <\/b><i>Insight Edge<\/i> podcast.<\/p>\n<div class=\"inline_embed article-block-item\"><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/vGUGXJ34DvI?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Instead, he pointed to the longest format as the pinnacle of the game, and said he was disappointed not to see Kohli competing with the likes of Joe Root, Steve Smith, and Kane Williamson in red-ball.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI got really disappointed when Virat Kohli quit Test cricket and gave up that fight to compete with the likes of Joe Root, Kane Williamson, Steve Smith, and that for me remains something that I\u2019ll always be disappointed about,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI thought he had maybe one more year of giving it a shot, to try and work out the problems that he had at the Test level. He\u2019s not like Rohit Sharma, who\u2019s more a white-ball phenomenon. Virat Kohli has 30 Test hundreds, so for me it should have been rather it\u2019s an honour to be competing with people like Kane Williamson and Joe Root at Test level for somebody who\u2019s been a champion player. He must know deep down that this is not the highest level.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Manjrekar also said that Kohli\u2019s technique and fundamentals \u201creally let him down\u201d in the years preceding his Test retirement in 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor that career to end the way it did, in the last five years of his Test career he averaged 31 (30.72). So when he talks about fundamentals it\u2019s worked for white-ball cricket but that\u2019s not where your fundamentals get tested. He just couldn\u2019t find a solution for his problem outside of the last series in Australia he got out outside the off stump eight times, so it\u2019s something that he just gave up.<\/p>\n<p>Manjrekar also responded to Kohli\u2019s comments regarding the team environment in the Indian set-up, suggesting that he may have been deflecting from his own issues. \u201cIt happens to all of us when we\u2019re coming to the end of our careers, we start blaming a lot of other things for a problem that lies within.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAll Virat has to do is forget about the environment, forget about who wants you out, just look at your record in the last five years in Test cricket. Do you deserve to have an average of 31 in five years at the Test level? So we\u2019re just failing and you\u2019ve got a long rope as you deserve to get and in Indian cricket and culture you get the longest rope possible.<\/p>\n<p>However, he threw his weight behind Kohli for the 2027 ODI World Cup in South Africa.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think he\u2019s still good enough to be part of that tournament because he\u2019s going to be physically fit, he\u2019ll work hard at it. But it\u2019s not about Virat Kohli getting a lot of runs in the World Cup like he did in the last World Cup in 2023. My expectation for somebody with his experience and his skills, ability, and stature is that I want to see Indian players with the big names and the iconic players do it in the finals.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"publish-time\" id=\"end-of-article\">Published on May 18, 2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/sportstar.thehindu.com\/cricket\/ipl\/virat-kohli-test-retirement-disappointing-ipl-level-sanjay-manjrekar-insight-edge-podcast\/article70994656.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former India international Sanjay Manjrekar said that he was disappointed to see Virat Kohli retire from Test cricket last year. Manjrekar was responding to Kohli saying it was an honour to compete at the \u201chighest level\u201d after scoring a century for Royal Challengers Bengaluru against Kolkata Knight Riders.\u00a0 The former Indian international, however, suggested that&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":169200,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-169199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/GettyImages-1083148922.jpg","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgnRh4-I11","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=169199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169199\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/169200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=169199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=169199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=169199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}