'Captain is in danger of being sacked': Sunil Gavaskar on Virat Kohli's sudden decision

Virat Kohli announced his shocking decision to relinquish Test captaincy, just a day after India's Test series loss to South Africa. While some people couldn't relate the two events, former Indian opener Sunil Gavaskar feels India's defeat to South Africa could be one of the reasons why Virat Kohli gave up his Test captaincy. 

Under Kohli, India registered a historic win in Lords last year, and they also overcame Australia, Down Under. South Africa was the final frontier but Virat and co. failed to breach that barrier, and so there could have been some repercussion to India's failure, which prompted Kohli to take a call, as per Gavaskar. 

Speaking to India Today, the ICC Hall of Famer stated that an Indian captain is in danger of being sacked if the team doesn't win overseas.

"I'm not surprised at all. I thought that it might have come at the presentation ceremony, but that would have looked like it has come out of a sense of anger having lost the series. So, I think a little bit of gap and the decision has come," said Gavaskar. 

He further continued, "As a captain, I have experienced that series defeats overseas are not taken too kindly by the board and the cricket-loving public or board officials. The captain is in danger of being sacked. That has happened in the past and I'm pretty certain that this could have happened this time around because this was a series that India was expected to win and win easily."

The Men in Blue were favourites heading into the Test series against a relatively inexperienced South African team, and despite winning the first game in Centurion by 113 runs, India faltered in the remaining two matches to let slip their opportunity to win a first Test series in the rainbow nation. 

For the unversed, the third Test match against South Africa in Cape Town was Virat Kohli's 99th Test game of his career, which means he's likely to complete a ton of Test caps playing under a new captain.