Earlier He Was Leading By Example - Atul Wassan On Why Virat Kohli Stepped Down

Former Indian cricketer Atul Wassan reckoned that Virat Kohli’s form with the bat and the debacle in the T20 World Cup 2021 put too much pressure and he decided to step down as the Test captain as a result.

Wassan stated that Kohli used to lead by example with exemplary knocks but his form has taken a hit of late, which increased the onus on his shoulders, forcing him to make a tough decision.

“Nothing shocks me. What shocked me was MS Dhoni quitting Test captaincy in the middle of the series in Australia. I think the way things have been going by the last couple of months India’s debacle in the T20 WC there was pressure on him.”

“He is not getting runs. At times, he is pointing fingers at other players and as a captain, he must do that to egg them on and I totally support him for that but the problem was that earlier he was leading by example but lately, the thing is his batsmanship has come down,” Wassan told ANI.

“He never expected to lose his 50-over captaincy” – Atul Wassan

Back in September 2021, Kohli stepped down as the T20I captain. He was soon removed from ODI captaincy as well since the BCCI assumedly didn’t want to have split captaincy in white-ball formats. This would have come as a surprise to Kohli, as per Wassan.

“Every batsman, every player goes through that and it could accentuate that he was captaining all three formats. He also started the conundrum when he said he doesn’t want to do T20 captaincy which was the right decision but I think the board actually took it in a skewed manner and he never expected that he would lose his 50-over captaincy because his goal was to win the World Cup. This was what was missing from his cupboard,” Wassan said.

Kohli ended his Test captaincy stint with 40 wins and 17 losses in 68 matches.

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