‘Too much like us’: Steve Waugh praises Virat Kohli after Test retirement

Published on Authored by Sudipto Maity

When Steve Waugh retired from cricket, having played his last Test match against India at the iconic Sydney Cricket Ground on January 6, 2004, Virat Kohli wasn’t even a name well known in the domestic circuits in India. Twenty-one years later, one of the modern greats, and arguably the greatest batter the game has ever produced, played his last match in whites at the same venue. The date was January 5, 2025.

Virat Kohli
Virat Kohli. Photo courtesy: Virat Kohli/Instagram

He wasn’t Australian, had never played for Australia, yet, when it came to his temperament, he embodied the Aussie spirit and mirrored the team the great Steve Waugh lead in the late 90s and early 2000s. In a career spanning 14 years in Tests, Kohli scored both his first and his last century in red-ball cricket Down Under.

When he hung his boots from the longest format of the game in a surprise call just weeks ago, several legends and admirers of the game paid their rich tribute. In a recent exclusive interaction with Steve Waugh, Connected to India asked the cricket icon about Kohli and his contribution to the game.

Waugh said, “Oh, he’s been incredible. Like Sachin (Tendulkar) and Sunil Gavaskar before that, enormous pressure on India’s premiere batsman. You got 1.5 billion people riding on your back every time you go out. Only certain people can lift in those circumstances and they’re the great players, which Kohli was one.”

“At his peak, which was most of his career, he was the best batsman of the world in all three formats of the game, there’s no doubt about it,” he said.

“His form fell towards the end in Test cricket, which can happen. You got family, you got priorities in life. He’s played a lot of cricket, been away a lot, a lot of pressure, but he’s still a world class player.”

Waugh praised Kohli’s last hundred, which he scored at the Optus Stadium in Perth during the 2024-2025 tour.

Virat Kohli Perth
Virat Kohli celebrates after reaching his hundred at the Optus Stadium in Perth. Photo courtesy: x.com/ImRaina

To illustrate Waugh’s point, here’s how good Kohli was. While he made his debut in Tests in 2011 against the West Indies, Kohli scored his first ton in Australia at Adelaide a year later. That same year, he went on to score two more Test centuries and then scripted one of the most talked about career peaks in cricket.

In three consecutive calendar years, Kohli scored in excess of 1,000 Test runs — 1,215, 1,059, and 1,322 runs in 2016, 2017, and 2017 respectively. In the aforementioned period, he scored 14 Test hundreds and averaged in excess of 50.

Though his form dipped post 2019, and Kohli wasn’t the same prolific run-getter as he was before, he still commanded attention and respect from the opponents.

Waugh said he once asked his son Austin, who plays cricket professionally, to model the latter’s game on the Indian batter. “I said if you’re going to model your game on someone, Virat’s your man, because his technique was so incredible.”

Kohli went on to score seven of his 30 Test tons in Australia, the most by a visiting player, surpassing his idol Sachin Tendulkar by one century.

When Kohli arrived in the Australian shores in 2011, he wasn’t a popular figure. In fact, the youngster, still in his early 20s, got into trouble after pointing his ‘middle finger’ at the SGC crowd. But, by the time he returned back in 2014, Kohli was a changed man.

Just months ago, Kohli had experienced his first real ‘bad phase’ in international cricket. A much-hyped tour of England proved to be disastrous for him as the swinging ball accounted for his wicket often. He posted scores of 1, 8, 25, 0, 39, 28, 0, 7, 6, and 20 in five Tests at an average of 13.50 in 10 innings.

The Australia tour was a make-or-break for the youngster. While the home team won the series 2-0, Kohli announced his comeback in spectacular fashion, scoring 4 centuries, including two in a match, with an aggregate of 692 runs in 8 innings.

Since there, there has been no looking back for Kohli in Australia, and the crowd too warmed up to him, seeing him in a different light, for what he was — a ferocious competitor who liked giving back as much as he received.

“I love his passion,” said Waugh, “he was always into the opposition, in their face.”

“He played it the way we used to play cricket. So, if I played against him, I wouldn’t have liked him, because he was too much like us… Which I guess is the highest compliment you can get,” Waugh said.

India just wrapped their first Test match against England at Headingly, losing to the home side by 5 wickets even after scoring over 800 runs in their two innings.

While the Indian batsmen managed to score five tons in the said match, one must say Kohli’s energy was missing from the team.

Remember “60-overs of hell”? Post Kohli’s retirement and the recent debacle, the legend about his Lord’s heroics and his passion for Test cricket grows even stronger.