Captain Rohit Sharma and former skipper Virat Kohli are without doubt two pillars of the Indian cricket and the duo are representing Team India since 2008. Rohit and Kohli have played several match-winning knocks for India but there was time when news used to surface every other day claiming that things were not hunky-dory between the two stalwarts. The rumours of rift between Kohli and Rohit became stronger during the 2019 World Cup and touched the new high in 2021 when Kohli was sacked as ODI captain.
Now, former India fielding coach R Sridhar has revealed in his book that things were indeed not well between Rohit and Kohli but former India head coach Ravi Shastri intervened at the right time and prevented things from getting ugly between the two.
"After the 2019 World Cup, there was a lot of bad press about what allegedly happened in the dressing room during our campaign and following our loss to New Zealand in the semifinal. We were informed that there was a Rohit camp and a Virat camp, that someone had unfollowed another on social media – stuff that could be unsettling if you allowed it to fester," Sridhar wrote in 'Coaching Beyond'.
"We landed in the United States (US) some 10 days after the World Cup for a T20 series against West Indies in Lauderhill. One of the first things Ravi did on arrival was to call Virat and Rohit to his room and impress upon them that for Indian cricket to be healthy, they needed to be on the same page. 'Whatever happened on social media, that's all fine, but you two are the most senior cricketers so this must stop,' Ravi said in his typical non-nonsense manner. 'I want you to put all this behind and get together for us to move forward'," he revealed in the book.
