Posted by Virat Kohli on Wednesday via a post on social media put out the news of him stepping down from T20I captaincy post the upcoming T20 World Cup, Virat Kohli will continue to be India’s captain in ODI and Test format.
BCCI President, Sourav Ganguly and Secretary, Jay Shah weren’t aware of Virat Kohli stepping down from captaincy and minutes before Virat shared the statement publicly he had conveyed it to both Sourav Ganguly and Jay Shah and they’d accepted his resignation. Both Sourav Ganguly and Jay Shah congratulated Virat. Jay Shah tweeted “Thanks Virat Kohli for your contribution as the Team India captain. As a young talent the focus and determination you have showed as the captain is unmatched. The most impressive aspect was the way of maintaining balance between captaincy and individual performance.”
The news of Virat Kohli stepping down from captaincy hasn’t come as a shock, there were reports and talks earlier of Virat stepping down from white ball captaincy with work load turns out to be only T20I. The report published was criticized and was declared rubbish by few BCCI officials and it wasn’t just in a publication, in a weeks time two different publications printing the same news surely had something more to it, there’s no smoke without fire.
Virat Kohli in his letter mentioned workload but what will change after stepping down from T20I captaincy will be a wait to watch cause here it isn’t white ball captaincy it’s only from the shortest format of play, T20I. Couple of talking equations, what if Virat Kohli wins the T20 World Cup this year, next year there again is a T20 World Cup. So could have he waited ? Second, what if Virat doesn’t win this T20 World Cup, will he be captaining in 2023 ODI World Cup that’s in India ? for now that’s uncertain, if Rohit see’s a successful campaign in the next T20 World Cup in Australia and T20I games he’s likely to be given the ODI captaincy and will be India’s white ball captain.
Virat Kohli doesn’t hold a bad record as a captain in any format, the only thing that goes against him is of not having won an ICC trophy or IPL trophy, the cabinet’s remained empty. A captain is tested at the biggest stage and it’s unfortunate that Virat Kohli hasn’t got over the final line. Virat Kohli lately hasn’t performed too good with the bat and would have wished to take some pressure off and the T20 WC 2021 being Virat’s last World Cup as T20 captain will take some pressure off as he knows he wins it or not there there won’t be any talking of captaincy.
Rohit’s success as a T20 captain did have an impact, Rohit Sharma has captained India in 19 T20I games and has won 15, Rohit Sharma the IPL captain has won 5 titles for Mumbai Indians in his 7 years of captainship, the talk of Rohit’s success was surely a factor and also a few members in BCCI did want Rohit Sharma to be the Indian teams captain, Rohit’s done good as a captain that one does wish to see him lead the Indian team, had there not been Rohit Sharma the captain with that much of success to his name we might have seen a lot more of Virat Kohli the captain even in the shortest format. These are factors that count, there’s more.
Despite the numbers game that Virat holds the strongest there was always more to Virat Kohli stepping down, the drought of a trophy in IPL or ICC events count but there’s more to it. A report claims that the dressing room was drifting away, Virat Kohli didn’t want Rohit Sharma as India’s vice-captain. The report further claimed unlike MS Dhoni Virat isn’t available for the team outside the ground, the biggest complain against Virat Kohli is that he didn’t back youngsters after bad performances.
Virat Kohli wanted KL Rahul and Rishabh Pant as vice-captain’s in ODI and T20I respectively, when Virat conveyed this it didn’t go down well with the board which believes that Kohli doesn’t want an actually successor and it’s also figured out that Virat Kohli wants to have the 50 over captaincy till the 2023 ODI World Cup that will be played in India, Virat does wish but there is clear uncertainty if he’ll have it till the home World Cup.
Selectors are likely to pick the new captain and vice captain for T20I in a weeks time, Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul are most likely to be appointed as teams captain and vice-captain respectively. Ravi Shastri’s coaching period will end after the T20 World Cup, Anil Kumble, former Indian coach who saw a controversial and a disrespectful end is requested to return to the post, VVS Laxman is also approached for the post.
Bureau of sports 