'Felt Virat Kohli was deliberately troubled': Rashid Latif makes astonishing claim about Sourav Ganguly

The year 2022 has been a roller coaster ride for Virat Kohli. After leaving captaincy in the T20I format last year, he was replaced by Rohit Sharma in both the limited-overs formats, and later the 33-year-old also relinquished the Test captaincy with Rohit again filling in his boots. 

He would then undergo a lean patch, struggling for runs throughout the year, before taking a month-long sabbatical, and returning for the Asia Cup, wherein he has scored two fifties and his much-awaited 71st century. 

Former Pakistan skipper Rashid Latif in a recent conversation with Ajay Jadeja pointed out how Virat's career trajectory changed after Sourav Ganguly took over as the BCCI president. Latif also made an astonishing claim, that he felt a player who was at the peak of his career, was deliberately troubled. 

READ| Virat Kohli, Ravindra Jadeja's 'transition' in Team India to begin after T20I World Cup 2022: Report

"They (India) took Dhoni as mentor in the World Cup. Just before that, he (Kohli) announced that he would step down as T20I captain. That was very shocking for us and we didn't know what was happening behind the scenes," said Latif while speaking to Jadeja's Youtube channel 'Caught Behind.'

The ex-Pak skipper continued, "Then, the team goes to South Africa and Rohit gets unfit, and KL Rahul becomes the captain. And there, Kohli left the Test captaincy as well. So a lot of things were happening."

Latif further added, "Then, if I go back to the 2019 World Cup, Ravi Shastri was the head coach there. What I observe from all this is that Sourav's arrival triggered the change. Shastri left, then Rahul Dravid came, Vikram Rathour was already there. I think there was something brewing up behind the scenes. It felt that a player who was at the high of his life was deliberately troubled."

READ| 'Bring the cup home': Kumar Sangakkara's message to Sri Lanka ahead of Asia Cup final against Pakistan

Despite his fair share of troubles in 2022, Kohli made a sparkling return in the Asia Cup 2022, scoring 276 runs in five matches, and he could well finish as the tournament's highest run-scorer, despite India's elimination, should Mohammad Rizwan fail to at least 50 runs in the final against Sri Lanka.