Ravi Shastri, the head coach of the Indian cricket team, goes out not with a bang but with a whimper, with India failing to qualify for the semifinals of the T20 World Cup. It also marks the end of the road for Virat Kohli as India’s T20 team captain, with yet another failure to win an International Cricket Council (ICC) tournament. India last won an ICC title back in 2013 — the Champions Trophy in England — when MS Dhoni was captain. Since then, Kohli has led India in four ICC tournaments in the three formats of the sport, taking the team to two finals. The debacle at the ongoing T20 World Cup breaks the chain of India reaching at least the semifinals of six successive ICC tournaments and gives food for thought to those who play and follow the sport.

It must be said, however, that it would be unwise to look back at the Shastri-Kohli era with despair due to the immediacy of the T20 World Cup failure. Fans may find greater thrills in T20 cricket, but among professional cricketers, the Test format is the pinnacle of the sport, and India have done rather well under Shastri-Kohli since Shastri took over. The Indian team is currently ranked No. 2 in Test cricket and has won the last two Test series in Australia — the conditions in Australia are so challenging, no other Asian team has won even one series in that country. And when the Test series against England was disrupted due to Covid in September, India were leading 2-1 after some stirring performances under Shastri and Kohli.

Shastri-Kohli should also be credited with taking India to the final of the World Test Championship this year and the semifinals of the 50-over World Cup in 2019. To forget all these achievements merely on the basis of two defeats — to Pakistan and New Zealand — in the current T20 World Cup would be churlish. T20 is a fun format, the most fickle of the sport’s three formats, as can be gauged from the fact that five different teams have won the six T20 World Cups held before this year. Kohli’s feats in the Test and ODI formats have earned him the respect of his peers and failure in his only T20 World Cup as captain will not change that.