New Delhi, Dec, 05: Indian cricket endured a tough time when Virat Kohli’s resignation as India captain was at the center point of several debates. Kohli stepped down from India’s T20I captaincy after the T20 World Cup 2021 and was later removed from the ODI skipper’s role. He then stepped down from Test captaincy at the start of 2022.
Kohli quit the Test captain’s role at the end of the India vs South Africa Test series in 2021/22. Kohli, who was at the helm of the longest format from 2014 onwards, made a sudden resignation from the post despite being the most successful India captain in the format.
Former India captain and the BCCI President at the time of Kohli’s resignation Sourav Ganguly has opened up on the batter’s departure from captaincy again. Ganguly has said that he did not remove the Delhi-born cricketer from Test captaincy and he just wanted him to resign as skipper from ODIs after he stepped down from T20Is. “I didn’t remove Virat from captaincy. I have told this a lot of times. He was not interested to lead in T20Is. So, after he made that decision, I told him, if you’re not interested to lead in T20Is, it’s better if you step down from entire white-ball cricket. Let there be a white-ball captain and a red-ball captain,” Ganguly said on Dadagiri Unlimited Season 10, a reality show.
Kohli stepped down as India’s Test captain a day after the Men in Blue lost the series 2-1 to South Africa. He had earlier resigned as T20I captain in 2021 and was removed from ODI’s top post by the Indian Board.
Ganguly recalled how he pushed Rohit Sharma to take captaincy in all three formats. “I pushed Rohit Sharma a bit to take up the captaincy role because he wasn’t interested to lead in all three formats of the game. So, maybe I have a bit of contribution in that but no matter who is administrating, it’s the players who perform well on the field. I was appointed as the President of BCCI to work for the betterment of Indian cricket, this is a small part of it,” he said.
