IPL: Just-retired Virat, Rohit lend a perfect sub-plot as season resumes

The tagline for the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) versus Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) game on Saturday, 17 May, which reboots the IPL 2025, is almost a no-brainer: watch Virat Kohli in action for the first time since his Test retirement. Come 21 May (next Wednesday), it could be the same when Rohit Sharma steps out for Mumbai Indians against Delhi Capitals at their backyard.

 It’s a testimony to the aura of the Big Two that their surprise retirement from the long format, not in the most befitting of manner, grabbed the eyeballs in the middle of the simmering tension on the India-Pakistan border. They may have been the perfect examples of been there, done that in the game – but there could be that champions’ ego egging them on to give their best in one of the few remaining stages now left for them.

 The fact that both their teams are well poised to make the cut for the final four (RCB in second spot with 16 points from 11 games; MI in fourth with 14 points) adds lot more context to the second leg of the tournament – which will miss out on a sizeable number of overseas stars in the businessend. A total of 17 matches, including the three play-offs and the final on 3 June, are still to be gone through over six venues.

It was a cheerful Kohli who stepped out on Thursday at the Chinnaswamy Stadium – which had been an amphitheatre of many of his heroic batting efforts during a span of 18 years. A photo of him being greeted warmly by Ajinkya Rahane, Kohli’s erstwhile Test deputy and now captain of the Knights, has gone viral on the social media. The day after setting the global cricket fraternity in a tizzy last Monday, the icon and his wife Anushka Sharma headed for spiritual solace in Vrindaban after what must not have been an easy decision – before he was back in business again.

It’s been quite a journey for the duo of Kohli and Rohit from callow teenagers to two of the elder stateman of the game in the hurly burly of IPL arena – perceived to be a young man’s game. The fact that they are the top two rungetters in the history of IPL, alongside ruling the roost in other classical formats for 17 years with all its ups and downs is surely a testimony to their endurance, adapatability and class as batters.  

Kohli, a one franchise man ever since he took his IPL bow after leading a India to a Under-19 World Cup triumph, has amassed 8509 runs from 263 matches, including eight centuries. Rohit, who started with the now defunct Deccan Chargers, is on threshold of crossing the 7000-mark on 6928 runs off 268 matches and centuries.

Rohit Sharma was back at the nets for MI on Thursday

If Kohli has any regrets in his tryst with IPL, it has to be not being able to win the crown at least once as captain – despite him being at the peak of his prowess with the bat. The heartbreak of 2016 final, where he had scored an unbelievable 973 runs in the season but saw RCB fall short agonisingly by eight runs to Sunrisers Hyderabad, must have been galling. ‘’Virat and I have spoken about it many times. If one of us had stayed for little longer and won that game, it would have been very different. And winning an IPL is so special,’’ K.L. Rahul, an erstwhile RCB teammate, recalled in a podcast last month.

Rohit, on the other hand, has no such regrets as he has held that glittering trophy aloft six times – five as captain of MI and the one as a player with Chargers. Both may be no longer captains of their respective franchises, but their role in the teams’ leadership group remains as vital as ever.

It would hence be a cricket romantic’s dream to see either of them having the last laugh in what must have been an emotional rollercoaster of a year for them!

Catch the Match

 Saturday (17 May)

 RCB vs KKR

 Chinnaswamy Stadium, 7.30 pm