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The Virat Kohli-BCCI saga took a dramatic turn on Wednesday when the 33-year-old revealed his version of the story of how his reign as India's white-ball captain ended so abruptly. It all started when Kohli announced that he was stepping down as the T20I captain of the national side just a few days before the T20 World Cup.
It was a voluntary decision taken by him but BCCI president Sourav Ganguly recently claimed that the board had requested Kohli not to step down as the skipper of India in the shortest format. But on Wednesday, Kohli claimed that his decision was actually accepted without any complaints and was looked upon as a progressive step for the team going forward.
No one told me that I should not leave the T20I captaincy: Kohli
Contrary to Ganguly's claims, Kohli said, "Mujhe ye nahi kaha gaya tha ki aap T20 captaincy na choriye balki use bohot ache se receive kiya gaya, ki bohot ek progressive step hai aur sahi direction mein hai." (It was received quite well. No one took offense, no one had any hesitation. No one told me that I should not leave the T20I captaincy)
Kohli also added that there was no communication with him at all with respect to his removal as India's ODI captain. His statements led to a widespread debate among the Indian fans raising concerns about what's happening behind the scenes. As it turns out, a BCCI official finally opened up after the press conference and denied the allegations made by Kohli against the selection committee.
BCCI official claims that they asked Kohli not to quit the T20I captaincy
“Virat Kohli can’t say that we didn’t keep him in the loop. We spoke to Virat in September and asked him not to quit the T20 captaincy. Once Virat gave up the T20 captaincy on his own, it was difficult to have 2 white ball captains. Chetan Sharma told Virat about the ODI captaincy on the morning of the meeting,” a BCCI official told India Today.
There is certainly no doubt that there has been a lot of communication gap between BCCI, Virat Kohli and the public in the last few months, which has resulted in the whole situation becoming so ugly. With Chetan Sharma likely to address the media this week, it will be interesting to see if things finally sort out or if they go from bad to worse.