BCCI Sacked Virat Kohli After His Reluctance To Give Up As The ODI Captain, Rift Between The Board And Virat Intensifies- Reports

The BCCI, on Wednesday, came up with the big announcement of replacing Virat Kohli with Rohit Sharma as the new Indian ODI captain. The move was announced along with the announcement of Rohit’s appointment as the vice-captain of the Indian Test squad which will face South Africa in a three-match Test series from December 26.

Earlier this year, Virat Kohli himself gave up the T20 captaincy as part of his workload management when he announced the decision to step down as India‘s T20 captain prior to the ICC T20 World Cup 2021. Now, it is learnt that the decision to step down as the ODI captain did not get along too well with Virat as he refused to do so and this propelled the BCCI to sack him and announce Rohit Sharma as the new ODI captain.

Virat Kohli And BCCI Not On The Same Page

As per reports published in TOI, the BCCI had asked Virat Kohli to announce his decision of stepping down as India’s ODI captain too ahead of the squad announcement for the South African tour. The BCCI waited for 48 hours but Virat insisted on staying the ODI skipper and thus, the BCCI had to forcibly announce Rohit as the new ODI captain.

Notably, BCCI wanted to give Virat an honourable exit from captaincy but Virat’s reluctance to step down himself did not go too well with the BCCI bosses and thus they splashed the whip and sacked the ‘not-so-famous’ captain. These reports clearly indicate that the rift between Virat and the board has intensified even more and it will be interesting to see how Virat adapts from hereon.

The Decision Was In The Offing For A Long Time

It is learnt that the BCCI bosses, especially, Sourav Ganguly and Jay Shah had been pondering over Virat’s limited-overs captaincy for a long time. Another failure in an ICC tournament which came in the form of the ICC T20 World Cup 2021 meant Virat’s reign as the white-ball skipper was all but finished.

The outster was inevitable. However, BCCI wanted to maintain Virat Kohli’s dignity as he has been a long and one of the most successful servants of Indian cricket. However, Virat had other ideas and the BCCI didn’t really intend upon giving another shot.