Former Indian all-rounder and a World-cup winner Madan Lal was shocked to hear Virat Kohli's decision to step down as the captain of the Test team and feels that the 33-year-old must still be "very annoyed" with the selectors' decision to remove him from ODI captaincy.
Kohli had stepped down from T20I captaincy following the 2021 T20 World Cup last November and was removed from the ODI captaincy a month later with BCCI naming Rohit Sharma as the new white-ball skipper. While BCCI president Sourav Ganguly admitted that he had requested Kohli to reconsider his T20I decision, he announcement to step down from the role urged the selectors to remove him from ODI captaincy as they didn't want two different white-ball skippers.
Kohli, however, contradicted the words saying that he had no communication regarding T20 captaincy and that he was removed from the ODI role 90 minutes before the team selection for the South Africa test series.
Speaking to India Today on the Kohli's decision on Saturday evening, Madan feels that the ODI captaincy episode must have been in his mind for long which played a role in him quitting Test captaincy.
"It has definitely surprised me that Virat Kohli has left Test captaincy. I think he is still very annoyed with the decision of the selectors or the board when hey said you're not going to be the captain of the 50-overs side. That I think he still has in mind, he is still thinking 'why they removed from the 50-over format?'.
{{/usCountry}}"It has definitely surprised me that Virat Kohli has left Test captaincy. I think he is still very annoyed with the decision of the selectors or the board when hey said you're not going to be the captain of the 50-overs side. That I think he still has in mind, he is still thinking 'why they removed from the 50-over format?'.
{{/usCountry}}"We knew he is going to be the captain for Tests, he was very successful series. I definitely think he is very annoyed with the selectors or the board that he was removed from 50-over captaincy," Madan said.
Kohli ended his tenure as the fourth-most successful skipper in Test history - winning 40 Tests in 68 matches while 11 others ended in a draw.