New Delhi, May 12 : Former India cricketer and national selector Sarandeep Singh said he considers Virat Kohli as an icon and one of the greatest Test cricketers to have ever played the format. On Monday morning, Kohli announced his retirement from Test cricket, bringing curtains on a glorious 14-year career, comprising of 9230 runs in 123 matches at an average of 46.85.

"Virat is an icon actually. He is one of the greatest players to have played Test cricket. He always loved to play and win Test cricket matches all the time. He was always there to promote playing Test cricket ahead of everything. For me, Virat Kohli is the brand ambassador of world cricket and did so much to promote Test cricket amongst players and fans.'

"He would always say to the youngsters that you should play Test cricket and be known as Test cricketers, instead of just being known for playing white-ball cricket. The way he played Test cricket, that will be missed a lot by the entire cricketing world. He did the captaincy of the Test team so well," said Sarandeep in an exclusive conversation with IANS.

Apart from being India's fourth-highest run-getter in Tests, Kohli also led the side in 68 matches in the game's longest format. Under Kohli's captaincy, India won 40 matches, including winning a Border-Gavaskar Trophy series in Australia for the first time in 2018-19, making him the country's most successful Test captain of all time.

Kohli's decision to retire from Tests comes days after Rohit Sharma announced his Test retirement. The veteran duo retiring in a week means India will travel for their five-match Test tour of England with a huge vacuum in their batting order.

Sarandeep, who was Delhi's head coach when Kohli played a Ranji Trophy match after 12 years - against Railways at the Arun Jaitley Stadium earlier this year ' admitted to being taken aback by the talismanic batter's decision to quit playing Tests and felt the team, now firmly in a transition period, still needed him.

"It comes as a very surprising development for me because I still feel he can play for another 2-3 years. All of this happened very soon because Test cricket needs Virat Kohli very badly. With him now going away from Test cricket, people will now stop watching it.

"When Virat played Tests, one had that feeling of 'Virat is coming, Virat is coming' and they loved watching him play the longer format. It's not that he will never take retirement ' it has to come to every cricketer. But I feel that this has come a bit too early, considering his level of fitness and performance. I strongly feel that the Indian team needed him badly in Tests for a few more years," he concluded.

/IANS