Kane Williamson has revealed that he spoke to Virat Kohli a day before announcing his retirement from international cricket. The former New Zealand captain called time on his career in June, midway through the Test series against England, having amassed 19,356 international runs, 9515 in Tests, 7256 in ODIs and 2575 in T20Is.
The decision came 13 months after Kohli announced his retirement from Test cricket. Williamson, 36, did not divulge much about their conversation but revealed that by the time he put the phone down, he had made up his mind.
“I had a really cool chat with Virat the day before I announced it. And it was like looking in a mirror. Sharing the experiences that we’ve had in the game for so long. He’s still playing a little bit, but has largely made some of those big decisions,” Williamson said during the ‘Between Two Beers’ podcast.
“There’s no one else - even players in your team at times - who has been there in that exact same position for the exact same length of time. Captaincy roles, children at the same time. We’ve sort of led this parallel life. What we’ve had is quite a special relationship, although in different worlds. It was cool to share some of that. I got off the phone, my wife entered the hotel room, and I was like, ‘It’s time’.”
Williamson and Kohli's careers have been intertwined in more ways than one. The two captained their respective sides when India beat New Zealand in the 2008 Under-19 World Cup semi-final - Kohli eventually went on to lead India to the title. They subsequently became part of cricket's ‘Fab 4’, ruling the batting charts for much of the following decade.
{{/usCountry}}Williamson and Kohli's careers have been intertwined in more ways than one. The two captained their respective sides when India beat New Zealand in the 2008 Under-19 World Cup semi-final - Kohli eventually went on to lead India to the title. They subsequently became part of cricket's ‘Fab 4’, ruling the batting charts for much of the following decade.
{{/usCountry}}Williamson and Kohli have also shared a close bond despite facing each other on several big occasions, including the 2019 World Cup semi-final and the 2021 World Test Championship final. As it turned out, both retired from Test cricket before reaching the 10,000-run mark, another common thread in their careers.
“It’s funny, your approach to the game and how you go about it. If and when that starts to change and that was largely what we were sharing. Most of the conversation was like 16 years on this pursuit, and every day is, how do I get better? How do I get this team better? And we were talking a lot about that. You do it for a long time. Your life changes for the better. You do something, and you love it for so long, give it everything, and you do have to put it down,” said Williamson.
But your life does change, and therefore you can find yourself in positions where you’re doing things for reasons that aren’t yours. And you can’t do that for a long time. It was important for me to understand it a little bit, and I was in that space because I didn’t want to make any drastic decisions. But I could sense and see that it was changing a bit. And we were just talking about this.”