“There are lobbies against him”, Shoaib Akhtar on Virat Kohli’s decision to quit as Test captain

Kohli stepped down as Test captain after losing the series against South Africa.

It’s been a week since Virat Kohli announced his resignation from the Test captaincy. His decision came as a shock to all his fans and followers. When he stepped down as the T20I captain and was sacked from the ODI captaincy, fans believed Team India will now choose the path of split captaincy, but Kohli didn't leave that option by relinquishing the leadership role completely.

Sharing his two cents on Kohli’s resignation, former Pakistan speedster Shoaib Akhtar said there are "lobbies against him" and that is the reason he quit captaincy.

"It was a tight scenario for Virat. I was in Dubai and I was aware that if he wouldn't have won the T20 World Cup, it would have become a big problem for him and it did happen. There are lobbies against him and there are people against him and that is the reason why he stepped down," Akhtar told India Today.

Before departing for the South Africa tour, Kohli had said he was never asked "not to quit T20 captaincy", contrary to what BCCI president Sourav Ganguly had told several media outlets after Virat’s removal as ODI captain earlier this month.

Kohli had also spoken about the lack of communication from the board before removing him from the 50-over captaincy.

Shoaib, however, advised the former India skipper to put behind the captaincy saga and focus on his batting.

"Whoever enjoys the star status, will always face problems but there's nothing to fear about. Anushka (Kohli's wife) is a very nice lady and Virat is a great guy. He just needs to be brave and not be afraid of anything. The whole country loves him, just that these are testing times for him and he needs to come strongly out of it," he said.

Akhtar further advised Kohli to forget and forgive people and enjoy his cricket.

"Now that it has happened, he needs to work hard now and not work too hard. Keep it simple and just play his normal cricket. Captaincy is not an easy job - you have to handle a lot of things and there is a lot of tension that comes with that job.

"Now that he is off the hook, he just has to make sure that he enjoys his cricket. He is great and he should know that. He just has to enhance his value. He should know that he can't be imprisoned of his own bitterness. He should forget and forgive people and will become an even better human." Akhtar added.

"If he can give good performances in the next five-six months, he will be happy to have quit captaincy and would tell himself that he can score 120 international hundreds.

"His next 50 centuries will be because of the anger that he has now. And, this anger does not have to be reflected on people but in his batting," Akhtar signed off.