Virat Kohli will go down as one of the greatest across formats, says Ben Stokes

Ben Stokes on Tuesday hailed Virat Kohli, saying the former India captain will "go down as one of the greatest ever in all formats".

Stokes announced his retirement from ODIs on Monday, citing he is unable to give his all in all formats and wanted to focus solely on Tests and T20Is. Kohli made a great gesture by writing respectful words on Stokes' retirement post on Instagram.

"You're the most competitive bloke I've ever played against. Respect," Kohli wrote.

Stokes' final ODI for England is currently underway in Durham against South Africa. Ahead of the game, Stokes spoke to Sky Sports on his decision and Kohli's comment.

"He's going to go down as one of the greatest ever in all formats. I've loved it every time I've played against him. The energy and commitment he gives I've always admired. When you play against guys like that, you understand what it means at the top level. It was nice to hear," Stokes said.

Kohli, who has scored over 23,000 runs across formats, averages more than 50 in ODIs and T20Is, due to his recent poor form, his average in Tests has dipped to 49.53.

Talking about the hectic schedule these days across formats in international cricket, Stokes said that players were not like cars and a busy calendar takes a lot of toll on them.

"You always want to be contributing to your team and need to be on it, 100% of the time. We're not cars where you can fill us up with petrol. It does all add up, it does have an effect on you. The schedule is jam-packed and you're asking a lot of the players to keep putting in 100% of their efforts every time you walk onto the field for your country," Stokes added further in the Sky Sports interview.

On being asked if he had a message to cricketing boards regarding the same, the England Test skipper replied," I'm not sure if it's going wrong. Maybe just sit back and understand... don't expect everyone going to turn out every single time. Teams are looking at their squads and players and asking when they can give them a break. If you want the best product, you want the best players out there giving it their all. I don't think it looks good. I look at the fact we were playing a Test match and our white-ball team were playing a one-day series at the same time."

Ben Stokes: Didn't like the feeling of not contributing as much as I wanted

Stokes revealed that he made up his mind to give up the ODI format after England's first 50-over fixture against India earlier this month, which the hosts lost by 10 wickets. The all-rounder went on to add that as soon as he had decided, he spoke to England's new limited-overs skipper Jos Buttler.

"The schedule and everything that's expected of us for me personally feels unsustainable. It was after the first one-day game. It was quite clear - once you start thinking about things, you get advice from other people. One person I spoke to said to me: 'if there's any doubt, there's no doubt'. This England shirt deserves 100% from whoever wears it and I didn't like the feeling of not being able to contribute in the way I wanted; and the feeling of stopping someone else from progressing in this format for England.

When I thought long and hard and realised I couldn't do that in all three formats... it was made easy knowing that I can't go out there and give my all. I always knew that at some point, I would have to choose one of the white-ball formats to continue with but I didn't know which one. After the first ODI, it hit me in the face and I spoke to Jos. When I went away and had five minutes to myself, I told him I was just a bit useless. It wasn't a nice feeling," added Stokes, who was the Player of the Match when England won the ODI World Cup final in 2019.

Meanwhile, Stokes stated that it was not an easy decision on which shorter format to give up.

"It was never going to be an easy one, but now being the captain of the Test team and how much cricket is coming up, I have to look after my body because I want to play as long as I possibly can. I look at how Jimmy and Broady's careers have gone since they stopped playing white-ball cricket... I want to play 140, 150 Test matches for England. It's come earlier than I would have liked but in T20 cricket I bowl 2 or 3 overs here and there. Hopefully, when I'm 35, 36, I can look back on this decision and say I'm happy with it," Stokes explained further.