Chetan Sharma, the current head of the BCCI selection committee for the Indian team, has made some shocking revelations with regard to the ongoing behind the curtains of Indian cricket regarding players taking injections to get fit and the biggest of all came on the Virat Kohli-Sourav Ganguly saga.
Virat Kohli had announced that he’ll step down as the captain of the Indian T20I team after the T20 World Cup 2021 in UAE but had said that he would like to continue leading the Indian side in ODIs. However, days later BCCI announced that Virat Kohli had been removed as the ODI captain with Rohit Sharma being named the new captain.
In the aftermath, Chetan Sharma, who was the then BCCI chief selector, and Sourav Ganguly, the then BCCI president said that they had tried to convince Kohli to continue as captain in all formats and only when Kohli refused to do so, they decided to remove him as ODI captain as well, as they didn’t want two different captains in limited overs format.
Later, Virat Kohli revealed that he had received no such call nor did he talk to Ganguly about anything, and that he came to know of his removal as ODI captain like everyone else.
But now in a sting operation conducted by Zee media, Chetan Sharma has revealed Virat Kohli lied when he told media before the South Africa tour that Ganguly didn’t try to stop him from quitting T20 captaincy after the T20 World Cup 2021. At the end of the press conference in 2021, Kohli told the media that he was told by the selectors that he will no longer continue as ODI captain as well.
Sharma pointed out that it became an ego issue between Kohli and Ganguly, which then became BCCI vs Kohli.
“Any row between player and BCCI President is dangerous as it becomes players vs BCCI. Out of this who is wrong is judged later, but it becomes an attack on BCCI directly. All players are warned that the harm will come to players only.
Virat Kohli felt he lost the captaincy because of BCCI President. There were 9 people in the selection committee video conference, Ganguly may have told him ‘think about it once’. I think Kohli didn’t hear it, there were 9 others there including myself and all other selectors, BCCI officials – Kohli might not have heard him,” Chetan Sharma revealed in a sting operation by Zee media.
Chetan Sharma then said that Kohli believed that he was bigger than the game and the presser was to be about the team but turned into his captaincy.
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“The PC before leaving for South Africa is about the team but why he bought the topic of captaincy I don’t know, maybe Kohli did it on purpose. The truth is Kohli was lying, Ganguly told him to think over it. Why Kohli lied, no one knows till now. It became a controversy, it was Board vs Player.
Why he lied, maybe he felt Sourav Ganguly played a big hand in Virat Kohli losing the white-ball captaincy,” Chetan Sharma added.
The former player made it clear that the former BCCI chief wasn't inclined towards Rohit Sharma as such but wasn't simply in favor of Kohli.
Kohli then quit the Test captaincy as well after the South Africa tour and Rohit Sharma was given the command of the team in all three formats.
(Zee media and Wion News inputs)
