Rohit Sharma’s contrary view on Virat Kohli’s plan for test cricket: ‘It should be played everywhere’

Virat Kohli is undoubtedly one of the most successful test captains that the Indian cricket team has ever had. The former Indian cricket team captain is one of the key reasons for the growing popularity of test cricket in India and around the world in the recent past. Another reason that the younger generation is slowly moving towards test cricket is the introduction of the World Test Championship, But when it comes to the Indian test cricket scenario, one can not forget the contribution of ace Indian cricketer Mahendra Singh Dhoni and how he strengthened the team after former captain Saurav Ganguly. We also can’t overlook the fact that during the tenure of Virat Kohli test cricket boosted even more in India. 

Indian star batsman Virat Kohli is one of the biggest ambassadors of test cricket and he had certain ways of promoting the longest format of the game. Back in 2019 when Kohli was leading the pack he wanted India to play Test at only 5 venues, however, he didn't mention any cities When he said, "We've been discussing this for a long time now, and in my opinion, we should have five Test centres, period. I mean, I agree [with] state associations and rotation and giving games and all that, that is fine for T20 and one-day cricket, but Test cricket, teams coming to India should know, we're going to play at these five centers, these are the pitches we're going to expect, these are the kind of people that will come to watch,''. "It can't be sporadic and spread over so many places where people turn up or they don't, so in my opinion, absolutely. You should have five strong Test centres that teams coming to India know that this is where they're going to play." Virat further added.

As we know, opinion matters from person to person likewise it happened among team India captains. Rohit doesn't agree with his predecessor Kohli in fact his view on this is just contrary. When the Indian skipper was asked the same question during the ongoing Border-Gavaskar Trophy he expressed how test cricket should not be limited to places and should reach a wider range of our country as the more areas it gets the more interest we would be able to bring in among people.

"Why just big centres? We want to take the game to all parts of India. I'm pretty pleased at the venues where Test cricket is being played - places like Dharamsala, Indore. In the future, we might see other venues as well. I'm pretty much ok with it as long as we can take Test cricket to every corner in India." said the Indian captain Rohit Sharma
"All the Test centres we are playing at right now, after Covid we have managed to bring in decent crowd in almost every game. Delhi was quite surprising - the crowd there was superb. We've not seen that many people turn up in even big centres. That's how the other centres started getting Test matches and I feel that if you want to promote Test cricket, it should be played everywhere," Rohit added.
Countries like Australia and England have 5 fixed venues for prestigious test series like BGT and Ashes. In England, these series are mostly played in Lord's, The Oval, Headingley, Trent Bridge, Manchester and Edgbaston Whereas Ausiess hold such tournaments in Sydney, Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne and Brisbane.