Virat Kohli's decision to step down as captain of India's Test team came as a surprise to many. With Rohit Sharma named India's ODI and T20I captain, and Kohli in charge of the Test team, it looked as if the concept of split captaincy was finally going to be implemented in Indian cricket, but Kohli's ground-breaking announcement cancelled out those plans.
Before speculations could begin, BCCI president Sourav Ganguly put out a tweet saying that the call was entirely Kohli's, meaning that the board had nothing to do with it. And going by Kohli's official statement, it appeared evident that he did it without any pressure.
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However, former Pakistan captain Rashid Latif feels otherwise. The ex-wicketkeeper reckons that irrespective of what Kohli said on what Ganguly has tweeted, the 'reason' behind Virat resigning as Test captain is due to him being at loggerheads with the BCCI chief.
"The real reason why these things happen is because you have a tiff with the board. Irrespective of what Virat says that it's his decision or what Sourav Ganguly tweets, this is battle of two stalwarts," Rashid Latif said in a video on Caught Behind.
{{/usCountry}}"The real reason why these things happen is because you have a tiff with the board. Irrespective of what Virat says that it's his decision or what Sourav Ganguly tweets, this is battle of two stalwarts," Rashid Latif said in a video on Caught Behind.
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Without naming anyone, Latif hinted that the board intended to throw Kohli off by removing him as ODI captain in December, but the move backfired. With India losing emphatically at the T20 World Cup and now suffering a defeat in South Africa, which was deemed as their best chance to register a Test series win in the country, Latif feels 'some people' have managed to affect Indian cricket by targetting Kohli.
"Some people are emotional. They know when and how to provoke Kohli. When he announced that he won't captain India in T20Is after the World Cup, he was removed as ODI captain as well. You haven't only unsettled Kohli; you've unsettled Indian cricket," he explained.