The chairman of the All-India selection committee, Chetan Sharma, has spoken in detail about the infamous episode that took place in late 2021 involving the then Indian skipper Virat Kohli and former BCCI president Sourav Ganguly. In a sting operation conducted by a television channel, the 57-year-old spilled the beans on what happened behind the scenes that led to the alleged feud between the two legendary captains of the Indian cricket team.
Sharma, who was the chairman of the selection committee back then as well, said that the relationship between Kohli and Ganguly involved “ego issues.” According to him, the star Indian batter had started considering himself “bigger than the board” and had tried to “hit back” at the former BCCI president as he felt that Ganguly had removed him from the ODI captaincy.
When the player becomes popular, he considers himself to be bigger than the board and thinks that nobody can touch him. He feels that cricket in India would stop without him. But has that ever happened? Some of our biggest cricket stars came and went, but cricket remained the same. So, he (Kohli) tried to hit back at the (former) president at that time. It was a damaging controversy. It was a classic case of a player going against the BCCI. The president represents the BCCI, isn’t it? As to whose fault it was, that will be judged in time, but it was an attack on the BCCI. All our players are discouraged from doing this because the loss will be theirs as everyone will go against them, even if the president is at fault. There has to be some respect for the chair,” Chetan was heard saying during the sting operation.
According to the chief selector, ahead of India’s December-January 2021-22 tour of South Africa, Kohli purposefully brought up the issue of being removed from the ODI captaincy in front of reporters because he believed Ganguly had played a role in removing him from leadership in the 50-over format. He also accused Kohli of lying in front of the media about being removed from the ODI captaincy without any communication in order to defame Ganguly.
“Virat was going to South Africa as captain (of the Test side). Press conferences should be about team matters and not selections. There was no need to bring up this topic (Virat being removed from the ODI captaincy) during the press conference. But he did so intentionally. He felt that he had lost his ODI captaincy because of Ganguly. Ganguly had told reporters that he had asked him not to step down (as ODI captain), but Virat claimed before the media that the president never said this to him. This created a major controversy,” Chetan said.
“Ganguly had told him once during a video conference to think it (stepping down as ODI skipper) over. But Virat did pay heed. There were nine people at the conference, including all the selectors. I am not sure if Virat heard Ganguly correctly. Ganguly later claimed that Virat lied to the media about him. As to why he did so, nobody knows. It is his personal matter. It sparked off a controversy, and matters escalated to the extent that it became an issue of a player against the Board,” Sharma said.
“Rohit Sharma had volunteered (to take over the ODI captaincy). It was an ego clash. Virat felt he was removed from the captaincy by Ganguly and wanted to teach him a lesson. So, he made the statements to the media to defame him. But it backfired on him,” he added.
He explained that Kohli was removed as ODI captain because the Board did not want two skippers for two-white ball formats, but rather one for red-ball cricket and another for white-ball cricket.
“Removing someone from captaincy is the job of selectors. We removed him from the ODI captaincy as we wanted to have one white-ball captain. This is normal procedure, and even he (Kohli) knows it. After Virat announced that he was giving up the T20I captaincy, the selectors made up their minds to remove him from the ODI captaincy as well,” said Sharma.
“The board and the selectors sit with the captain before removing him from the job. Virat knows this, which is why he felt that Ganguly played a big role in his removal from the ODI captaincy. But the thinking of selectors was different. We wanted separate captains for red-ball and white-ball formats,” the chief selector added.
