‘#269, signing off,’ says Virat Kohli on Test retirement post. What's the significance of the number 269? Explained

Virat Kohli announced his retirement from Test cricket on Monday with a heartfelt message on Instagram, drawing curtains to his illustrious 14-year-old career in red-ball cricket. The former India captain, thus became the third high-profile Indian cricketer to retire from Tests after Ravichandran Ashwin and Rohit Sharma in recent time.

Arguably the best in modern-day cricket, Kohli retired after playing 123 Tests, scoring 9230 runs, which included 30 hundreds. I’m walking away with a heart full of gratitude — for the game, for the people I shared the field with, and for every single person who made me feel seen along the way," Kohli wrote on Instagram with a picture of himself.

“I’ll always look back at my Test career with a smile. #269, signing off,” added India's most successful Indian Test captain with 40 wins out of 68 matches. However, many were left pondering about the significance of number 269 on Kohli's Test career.

Significance of 269 on Virat Kohli's career

Notably, 269 was the number of the Test cap that was presented to Kohli in 2011 on his long format debut against West Indies in Jamaica. Along with Kohli, India had two more debutants on that same day - Praveen Kumar and Abhinav Mukund.

In cricket, a cap number denotes the chronological order in which a player makes his or her debut for the country. That means, Kohli was India's 269th player to debut in Test.

Since then, 269 became one of the significant numbers in Indian cricket. In 14 years, Kohli played 123 Tests, scoring 9230 runs, with 30 Test centuries and 31 fifties.

Virat Kohli's numbers in Tests

He also ranks as the fourth-most successful Indian batter after Sachin Tendulkar (51 hundreds), Rahul Dravid (36), and Sunil Gavaskar (34) in terms of Test hundreds. Kohli also made seven Test double hundreds, the most ever by an Indian. Kohli also has the most Test hundreds by an Indian captain, with Gavaskar (11 centuries) way behind his 20 tons.