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Chetan Sharma comments adds to Indian cricket’s turbulent season
The controversy sparked by Virat Kohli’s rebuttal of BCCI president Sourav Ganguly’s comments seemed to be settling down, but has been stoked by the chief selector’s fresh clarification.
If it was Virat Kohli who first contradicted BCCI president Sourav Ganguly’s claims he was told not to give up T20I captaincy, chief selector Chetan Sharma has rekindled the controversy. The former India pacer’s suggestion that Kohli may have harmed team interests by announcing his T20I captaincy call close to the World Cup comes just after India have won the Centurion Test to start their chase for a first series win in South Africa.
Kohli’s pre-tour news conference where he said he was not asked to not quit as T20 captain and was told of his removal as ODI skipper only 90 minutes ahead of announcement was seen as lacking tact. It did, of course, ask serious questions about Ganguly’s comments on the chat he claimed to have had with Kohli on the T20 captaincy.
The possibility of Kohli commenting afresh on Sharma's statement looked remote after chief coach Rahul Dravid was nominated to addresses the media on Sunday, ahead of the second Test at The Wanderers, Johannesburg. Interestingly, Kohli has not addressed the media since that explosive December 15 comments. He has restricted his public comments to the official broadcaster, skipping even the traditional pre-series media engagement.
The Ganguly, Kohli, Sharma back-and-forth comments though raises questions on the BCCI media statement issued on September 16 when the announcement to quit the T20 captaincy was made. That media release hardly gave an inkling of the turbulence in the country’s cricket set-up.
It was a month before the T20 World Cup when Ganguly, thanking Kohli for his services, said: “the decision had been made keeping in mind the future roadmap.” BCCI secretary Jay Shah had said he had “been in discussions with Virat and the leadership team for the last six months” and the decision had been “thought through”. Kohli in his statement had spoken of having discussed it with the board secretary, president, head coach Ravi Shastri and vice-captain Rohit Sharma.
The fire was lit by the last line—in BCCI’s statement on December 8 that announced the Test squad—that Rohit Sharma will take over as ODI skipper with the outgoing skipper not even mentioned.
With BCCI under criticism, Ganguly gave media interviews saying that Kohli’s decision to give up T20I captaincy forced the selectors to remove him as ODI captain as they felt the white-ball captaincy can’t be split. “I had personally requested him not to step down. The chief selector spoke with him,” Ganguly said.
Few expected Kohli to contradict Ganguly’s claims in the December 15 media conference, where he dubbed them as “inaccurate”. Now, Sharma has backed Ganguly’s word. “All the convenors were there, the board officials were there. Everybody requested (Virat) ‘let's talk after the World Cup’,” Sharma said on Friday while naming the ODI squad.
Sharma didn’t see any ambiguity over the timing of BCCI’s communication to Kohli on removing him as ODI captain. Kohli had said: “I was told one and half hours before the (selection) meeting.” Sharma saw no problem in that. “He came to the (Test selection) meeting around 5:30 pm and we had informed him before that,” he said. “It was a hard decision for us and we have to take hard decisions; that’s what we are here for. Same goes for selection of the playing eleven. Sometimes those are need of the hour.”
A lot of blame on India’s group stage exit in the T20 World Cup fell on Kohli’s shoulders. MS Dhoni, parachuted as the team mentor a week before Kohli gave up the T20I leadership, too could make little difference.
Sharma was speaking on behalf of the board, and president Ganguly, when he said on Friday: “It was told to Virat “for the sake of Indian cricket, please continue as the captain”. All selectors felt at that time that this can affect us in the World Cup.”
All this still raise questions whether Kohli’s decision to unburden himself and Sharma’s counter were both ill-timed, made around such an important series. While India completed victory in the Centurion Test only on Thursday, the final Test at Cape Town will be Kohli’s 100th
It can only add the pressure Kohli finds himself due to a prolonged lack of big runs, though he is India’s most successful Test skipper with 40 wins, after a below-par 2021 in which he scored 652, averaging 26.08 over 14 Tests.
