Australia's legendary skipper, Ricky Ponting has made stunning revelations about former team India skipper Virat Kohli. Ponting has revealed that Kohli was thinking of quitting the T20I captaincy, a decision he announced in September, a month before India's T20I World Cup campaign in UAE.
Talking to former England cricketer Isa Guha on the first episode of The ICC Review, Ponting revealed that he had a chat with Kohli during the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2021's first leg, when it was being held in India.
IPL 2021 was scheduled to be held in India between April and May however the tournament had to be stopped mid-way amid rising cases of Covid-19. Ponting revealed that Kohli was thinking of stepping aside as captain of the white-ball team months before the World Cup began.
The Aussie legend also stated that he was 'shocked' and 'surprised' by Virat Kohli's decision to step down as skipper of the Test team, given how passionately he talked about leading the team in Tests, during their chat in the first leg of IPL 2021.
"Yes, it did actually (surprise me), probably the main reason why is I had a chat and good catch-up with Virat during the first part of the IPL (2021) before it got postponed," said Ponting.
He further added, "He was talking then about stepping away (from captaincy) from white-ball cricket and how passionate he was to continue on to be Test match captain. He just loved and cherished that job and that post so much. Obviously, the Indian Test team had achieved a lot under his leadership. When I heard it, I was really, really surprised."
This implies that the 33-year-old had already made up his mind about stepping aside as T20I captain five months ahead of making the decision official on Twitter.
After the T20I World Cup Kohli was sacked as the ODI captain, and recently, he also gave up the Test captaincy. In a matter of months, the powerful all-format captain has now become an ordinary player like his peers.
