Amidst debates and discussions surrounding Virat Kohli's resignation from captaincy roles in Indian cricket, Sourav Ganguly, the former India captain and then BCCI President, clarified that he did not remove Kohli from the Test captaincy. Kohli stepped down as India's Test captain at the conclusion of the series against South Africa in 2021/22. Despite being the most successful Test captain for India, Kohli made an unexpected resignation from the position.
Ganguly emphasized that he did not take the decision to remove Kohli from the Test captaincy, stating that he only encouraged Kohli to resign as the ODI captain after stepping down from T20Is. Kohli's journey as captain faced a significant transition, starting with his resignation from T20I captaincy after the T20 World Cup in 2021. Subsequently, he relinquished the ODI captain's role and, eventually, the Test captaincy.
"I didn't remove Virat from captaincy. I have told this a lot of times. He was not 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," Ganguly was quoted as saying on a reality show Dadagiri Unlimited.
Recommended For You
Also Read: PAK Women claim first ever T20I series win over New Zealand
Ganguly reflected on the situation and revealed that he played a role in persuading Rohit Sharma to take on the captaincy across all three 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," he said.