‘I didn’t remove Virat Kohli from captaincy’, reiterates Sourav Ganguly

NEW DELHI: The animosity between Virat Kohli and Sourav Ganguly became a focal point of media attention after Kohli decided to step down from T20I captaincy following India’s disastrous campaign in 2021 T20 World Cup.
Kohli then went on to relinquish the ODI and Test captaincy as well. But he left the entire cricket fraternity baffled by claiming that he wanted to continue ODI and Test captaincy and that the BCCI never asked him to reconsider his decision to quit as T20I skipper.

Ganguly, the BCCI president at the time, reiterated that he bore no responsibility for Kohli’s removal from the captaincy of the team.

Infact, he said he requested Kohli to continue leading in T20Is because selectors felt that’s too much of leadership if we have two different captains in white-ball cricket.
“I didn’t remove Virat from captaincy,” Ganguly said on reality show 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.”

Ganguly also disclosed that Rohit Sharma was not interested to lead in all three formats but he somehow managed to make him assume the captaincy role.
“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.