Virat Kohli back in training, thanks Gujarat Titans assistant coach for ‘helping out with the hit’ amid retirement speculation

Speculation over Virat Kohli’s cricketing future erupted on socia media after the former India captain posted a photo of himself with greying hair, which itself came in the wake of murmurs of the team’s selectors contemplating his and Rohit Sharma’s future with the ODI team. Kohli, however, may have put at least some of the speculation to rest with an Instagram story on Friday. The 36-year-old posted a photo on his Instagram stories along with Gujarat Titans’ assistant coach Naeem Amin in a training facility, thanking the latter for helping him out with a hit.

Virat Kohli’s Instagram post:

Kohli’s post with Amin. (Photo credit: Virat Kohli – Instagram)

Kohli and Rohit have both retired from T20Is and Tests, thus making the ODI format the only one in which they are still active in international cricket. Kohli had hung up his boots in shortest format after his player-of-the-match performance in the final of the T20 World Cup final last year, which India won, thus sealing their first ICC title in well over a decade.

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Captain Rohit Sharma also retired from the format on the same day and later, he announced his retirement from Test cricket during the 2024 IPL. Kohli did the same a few days later thus ending a red-ball career that spanned 14 years and 123 Tests.

Kohli then opened up on the decision last month while India were touring England for a five-Test series. “I just coloured my beard two days ago. You know it’s time when you are colouring your beard every four days,” he said. Both Kohli and Rohit last played any kind of top level cricket in the 2024 season of the IPL. With India not set to play any ODI cricket until the end of the year in Australia and South Africa, the pair are going to be out of action for quite a long time which has contributed in speculation over whether they will be in the selectors’ plans at all.