Farewell Virat Kohli, great emperor of the Test game.

As the former India captain retires from the red-ball format, Harry Latham-Coyle pays tribute to a genius at the crease

- HARRY LATHAM-COYLE

And so another of the great emperors of cricket abdicates. News of Virat Kohli's retirement arrived yesterday morning not with the fanfare and ceremony that might usually accompany such an announcement but with a conflicting sigh of expectation and disappointment, an acknowledgement that the end had long been near. There was to be no stage-managed farewell like that enjoyed by Sachin Tendulkar, no last Indian summer in England or valedictory bow, just a few days of speculation and a social media statement to proclaim the end of an era.

For the long arm of Father Time taps on the shoulder of even the greats of the game. Into Test retirement Kohli quickly follows Rohit Sharma, more than 13,500 runs vanishing from their top order ahead of a tour of England in a flash during the Indian Premier League (IPL) hiatus. Where Sharma was perhaps pushed, it seems Kohli has jumped – retiring on his terms despite urgings from the hierarchy that he stay for one last hurrah to help see in a new captain.

But the sovereign always did do things his own way. One can say with relative certainty that other batters will rise to replace him, just as Kohli grew to fill Sachin’s shoes. Shubman Gill, a player of princely talent, appears set to be coronated as Sharma’s successor as skipper; Yashasvi Jaiswal is already threatening records. The immutable truth of Indian cricket is that there will always be another: new faces and phenoms pop up by the week, each seemingly younger and more gifted than the last.