Virat Kohli back in business, but what’s in store for the Big Two?

The Instagram post of Virat Kohli getting down to practice in London on Friday has gone viral as expected – but it also raises a few eerie questions about the future of Big Two in international cricket.  Both he and Rohit Sharma are primed for return to ODI cricket, the only format they now play, against Australia in October but how long can we hope to see them on the big stage?   

 A day after Kohli posed with a fan with his beard conspicuously greying in the last few months, he sought the assistance of Gujarat Titans assistant coach Naeem Amin in what appeared to be an indoor net session. ‘’Thanks for helping out with the hit, brother. Always lovely to see you,’’ Kohli wrote on his Instagram story with a photo from the session.

 The master batter looked fit and ready – and the post was certainly intended to brush off any retirement talk as he lay low since the IPL final on 3 June which saw Royal Challengers Bangalore ending their 18-year-old title jinx. The celebrations after the final at RCB’s home city was marred by the tragic stampede outside the Chinnaswamy Stadium, which saw 11 lives being lost and has now put a question mark on their future in the IT city.

Rohit Sharma, still officially captain of the 50-overs team under whom the Men in Blue won the ICC Champions Trophy in Dubai in March, showed up as a VIP spectator during the Oval Test.  Now that the white ball tour of Bangladesh in August has been postponed till next year in the wake of anti-India sentiments still raging across the border, fans of the duo are bracing for India’s three-match ODI series in Australia for their return: 19 October (Perth), 23 Oct (Adelaide) and 25 Oct (Sydney). This will be followed by a five-match T20I series starting on 29 October.

  The buzz, meanwhile, is whether the new-look Indian team’s unexpectedly spirited show in the Test series in England sees any churn in the thinking of the team management under Gautam Gambhir and Ajit Agarkar. Much to the credit of Shubman Gill & Co, there was no srious refrain of recalling the two legends for red ball cricket even when the team slipped into defeats at Leeds and The Lord’s.

   A logical question hence doing the rounds is: it will only make sense to retain both Kohli (now 36) and Rohit (38) if they are in the mix for the 2027 ICC World Cup in South Africa – which is still a good two years away. Truth be told, there is no dearth of younger options for both the white ball giants with Yashasvi Jaiswal perfectly capable to take Rohit’s spot at the top of the order alongwith Gill and the options of KL Rahul, Shreyas Iyer and now Sai Sudarshan available to fill up the positions from number three to five.

While Kohli will be 38 in two years’ time and Rohit pushing 40, the ageism and lack of enough build-up games ahead of the next 50-overs showpiece can pose a serious challenge to their dreams for a last hurrah. Apart from the three games Down Under, there are only six more ODIs scheduled: three each against New Zealand and England, respectively till mid-2026 while another few against Bangladesh once the tour is rescheduled.

 This apart, they will certainly play in IPL 2026 while indications are the duo – still centrally contracted players in A+ grade – may have to play domestic white ball tournaments like the Vijay Hazare Trophy as a marker of their fitness and form. Terms which may not be palatable for two players who had been best exponents of this format for nearly last 15 years and did not put a foot wrong in the 2023 edition of the World Cup at home.

In 2023, Kohli and Rohit emerged as the top two rungetters of the tournament, amassing 765 and 597 runs, respectively. Kohli is the third highest run-scorer in ODI history with 14,181 runs in 302 matches at an average of 57.88, including 51 centuries and 74 fifties. Rohit Sharma, on the other hand, has 11,168 runs in 273 ODIs at an average of 48.76 with 32 hundreds and 58 fifties.

 Incidentally, Indian cricket had to grapple with an unsavoury transition between the team’s dismal outing in 2007 World Cup in the Caribbean and the 2011 success at home. The likes of Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid stepped aside of the white ball game while Sachin Tendulkar, then at the twilight of his career, rode the crest of an emotional rollercoaster when the team regained the crown at Wankhede.

 Can either Kohli or Rohit hope for such a glorious sign-off ? The next few months will hold the answers!