India Test captain Virat Kohli triggered a storm by publicly contradicting him, BCCI president Sourav Ganguly refused to comment on the matter, saying the BCCI will deal with it.
Virat Kohli, during his pre-departure press conference before the tour to South Africa, said that he was never asked to stay as T20 skipper when he made his intent clear on skipping the post. This was in complete contrast to Sourav Ganguly’s assertion a few days back that Virat had been requested to not quit the position.
“No statements, no press conference. We will deal with it, leave it to the BCCI,” Ganguly told local mediapersons on Thursday.
There was talk of BCCI asking chairman of selectors Chetan Sharma to address the media after Kohli’s explosive press conference but the Board eventually refrained from making any counter statements.
Kohli’s comments on Wednesday brought to fore the underlying tension in his equation with the administrators.
“Whatever was said about the communication that happened about the decision that was made was inaccurate,” Kohli said this with obvious reference to Ganguly’s statement. “When I left the T20 captaincy, I had first approached BCCI and intimated them of my decision and laid down my point of view in front of them.
“I gave the reasons why I wanted to quit T20 captaincy and my view point was received very nicely. There was no offence, no hesitation and not for once was I told that ‘you should not leave T20 captaincy’,” he said.
Earlier, Ganguly, in an interview, said that he had spoken to Kohli and told him that two captains in the white ball format was not something that the selectors wanted as there would be “too much of leadership.”
Rohit Sharma is now the white-ball captain and has also been made Kohli’s deputy in the Test format.