India legend Sourav Ganguly has reiterated he wasn’t responsible for removing Virat Kohli from the team captaincy.
Kohli had stepped down from T20I captaincy post the 2021 world cup but in a surprising turn of events, he also let go of the ODI and Test captaincy within a space of a few weeks as well.
Kohli then created a stir claiming he wanted to continue ODI and Test captaincy and that BCCI never asked him to reconsider his decision to quit as T20I skipper.
Ganguly, who was the then BCCI president, stated otherwise.
He had said Kohli was requested to continue leading in T20Is as the selectors didn’t want have two different captains in white-ball cricket.
“I didn’t remove Virat from captaincy,” Ganguly said on Dadagiri Unlimited Season 10. “I have said this a lot of times. He wasn’t interested to lead in T20Is. So, after he made that decision, I told him, if you’re not interested to lead in T20Is, it’s better if you step down from entire white-ball cricket. Let there be a white-ball captain and a red-ball captain.”
It was Rohit Sharma who succeeded Kohli into the role across formats.
“I pushed Rohit Sharma a bit to take up the captaincy role because he wasn’t interested to lead in all three formats of the game. So, maybe I have a bit of contribution in that but no matter who is administrating, it’s the players who perform well on the field. I was appointed as the President of BCCI to work for the betterment of Indian cricket, this is a small part of it,” Ganguly said.
Kohli led India in 68 Tests, overseeing 40 victories to become the most successful Indian captain in the format’s history.
He also led India in 95 ODIs and 50 T20Is.
While his record as skipper was quite impressive, Kohli, who captained India to U19 World Cup win in 2007, couldn’t repeat the feat at the senior level.
The closest he came was at the 2017 ICC Champions Trophy and 2021 World Test Championship Final with India finishing runners-up on both the ocassions.
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