Atul Wassan
Atul Wasaan. Credits: Twitter

Former Indian pace bowler Atul Wassan said that he wasn’t shocked after Virat Kohli’s decision to step down from India’s Test captaincy.

In the span of four months, Kohli has relieved himself from leading the Indian team from all formats. First, he stepped down from T20I captaincy at the conclusion of the World T20 event in November last year.

Ahead of the South Africa tour, the national selectors decided to hand over the complete white-ball captaincy duties to Rohit Sharma.

Virat Kohli
Virat Kohli. Photo Credit: (BCCI)

A day after India lost the Test series to South Africa 1-2, Kohli took to his official Twitter handle to announce his decision to quit the red-ball captaincy.

Kohli has also not been upto his best with the bat as hasn’t compiled enough runs in comparison to his record of previous years.

Nothing shocks me: Atul Wassan on Virat Kohli giving up Test captaincy

Wassan, who played four Tests and nine ODI matches for India, said that Kohli was already under pressure since India failed to qualify for the knockout stage in the T20 World Cup.

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,” Wassan told news agency ANI.

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,” he added.

Virat Kohli started the conundrum when he quit T20I captaincy: Atul Wassan

Things seems to be dicey between Kohli and the Indian board as there were different stories on Kohli’s removal from ODI captaincy.

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Virat Kohli -Most Wins By A Captain In Test Cricket
Virat Kohli. Image Credits: Twitter

Ganguly had said that the selectors had requested Kohli to not give up the T20I captaincy, something that national chief selector Chetan Sharma also reiterated during the South Africa Test series.

However, Kohli had mentioned that his decision to step down from India’s T20I captaincy was welcomed by the board.

Wassan said the board didn’t accept Kohli’s decision to give up the T20I captaincy very well. The former Delhi pacer also mentioned that Kohli wanted to win the World Cup as a captain.

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,” Wassan said.

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,” he added.

Kohli led India in 68 Tests, 95 ODIs and 50 T20 International matches and won a total of 135 games across all formats.

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