Indian pace bowler and good friend of Virat Kohli, Ishant Sharma, has revealed that Kohli’s dropped catch was the reason behind former Indian spearhead Zaheer Khan’s sudden retirement and why the left-arm seamer could not play 100 Test matches for India. During an expert panel discussion on JioCinema, Ishant recalled Kohli’s infamous dropped catch of New Zealand captain Brandon McCullum in 2014, to which Zaheer jokingly replied by saying that my career is over.
Notably, Zaheer announced his retirement from international cricket after this match where Virat dropped the catch of Brendon McCullum who went on to score 300 runs. New Zealand declared the second innings after scoring 680/8d in Wellington.
“We were playing in New Zealand. Brendon McCullum had scored 300 runs and when Virat Kohli dropped a catch, I remembered that this happened around lunch. Virat said sorry to Zak and Zak said, ‘No worries, we’ll get him out.’ During tea, Kohli said sorry again and Zak told him not to worry. On the third day when Kohli apologized during tea, Zak told him, ‘You’ve ended my career!,” Ishant shared the anecdote.
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Zaheer clarified Sharma’s story and said that he told Virat about the last time a dropped catch led to a 300-run knock.
They also joked about the likelihood of Kohli being upset with Ishant for bringing this story up, but Ishant was confident that his childhood friend Kohli wouldn’t mind.
“I didn’t say that. I said that there were only two players, the first was Kiran More who dropped Graham Gooch and he scored 300. After that, it’s Virat Kohli who dropped a catch and someone scored 300. Then, he told me not to talk like that, naturally as he wouldn’t have felt good about that. The catch was dropped and the runs were scored,” Zaheer said.
Both players Ishant and Zaheer picked up 311 wickets with 11 five-wicket hauls, but Khan played 92 matches compared to Sharma’s 105. This led to the group discussing the curious case of why Khan stopped short of playing 100 Tests for India.
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