Former Australia captain Ricky Ponting has revealed that he was shocked when he learned about Virat Kohli's decision to relinquish Test captaincy. Ponting, who had a conversation with Kohli during the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2021 season had an idea about the latter's decision to step away from the limited-overs captaincy but was passionate to continue as Test captain.
"Yes, it did actually (surprise me)," Ponting was quoted as saying on icc-cricket.com.
Ponting, 47, added the fact that, captaining the Indian national team is one of the most difficult jobs. According to him, the pressure of expectations and popularity of the sport in the country makes the captaincy job even tougher. Ponting, in his playing days, was a prolific batter while he also guided Australia to two World Cups as captain in 2003 and 2007.
"Probably the main reason why is I had a chat and good catch-up with Virat during the first part of the IPL (2021) before it got postponed.
"He was talking then about stepping away (from captaincy) from white-ball cricket and how passionate he was to continue on to be Test match captain. He just loved and cherished that job and that post so much. Obviously, the Indian Test team had achieved a lot under his leadership. When I heard it, I was really, really surprised,” the 47-year-old added.
"I was shocked, but then I started thinking about other things, even my own time as captain. I have gone on record and said that I probably think I played a couple of years longer than I should have in hindsight. I think I might have been captain for a couple of years longer than I should have," Ponting concluded while adding on his captaincy stint.
Kohli, on the flip side, has endured a tough time in recent days. His decision of relinquishing the Test captaincy came few weeks after he was sacked as the ODI captain. Kohli walked out with a proud captaincy record as he won 40 Test matches from 68. He ranks fourth in terms of most Test wins as a captain in the history of the game, while he has the most wins in the red-ball format as an Indian captain.
