What was supposed to be just news about Team India now having split captaincy turned into an ugly mess as statements after statements seemed to contradict the whole situation. It all started when the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) had tweeted a post saying that Virat Kohli has been axed from his ODI captaincy duties and the reins had been handed to Rohit Sharma.
While fans had no issue with the captaincy change with Kohli already stepping down as the skipper of T20I, it was the manner in which the responsibility was taken away from the batter and handed to Rohit that rose eyebrows.
The India cricket board had in a single tweet, announced Rohit's appointment and there has still been no proper statement from the BCCI explaining the change.
What had made things worst was the fact that Kohli, while he gave up his T20I captaincy - willingly - had mentioned that he wanted to focus on ODI and the Test teams.
However, BCCI President Sourav Ganguly had claimed that he had personally asked Kohli not to give up T20I captaincy, but as he did not agree to it, the selection committe thought it would be in the favour of Indian cricket to hand over white-ball captaincy to one player only.
However, the batter, in a press conferance ahead of the South African tour revealed that nobody had asked him not to give up the captaincy.
Kohli touched up upon various issues, regarding his ODI captaincy, and the alleged rift with Rohit Sharma. "When I approached BCCI about the T20 captaincy, it was received well by them and I was not told to not leave the T20 captaincy. I was contacted 1.5 hours before the selection committee meeting. The chief selector discussed the Test team. Before ending the call the selectors told me I won’t be ODI captain and I was fine. There was no prior communication," said Kohli.
With this statement, things got more ugly as cricket fans did not know whom to believe and whom not to. Not soon after, Ganguly chose not to add fuel to the fire and said, "No statements, no press conference. We will deal with it, leave it to (the) BCCI".
While some believe the there is a huge drama going on, many have now come to support Ganguly and have slammed Kohli for his comments.
Meanwhile, the Indian cricket team, led by skipper Kohli, landed in South Africa on Thursday (December 16). The side will play three Test matches and as many ODI matches with the first game being held December 26 at Centurion.
Given the threat posed by the new COVID-19 variant Omicron, the tour's T20 matches have been postponed as of now.
