Former India opener Gautam Gambhir believes Virat Kohli won’t be bothered too much by the whole captaincy saga that has seen him being removed from the team’s ODI captaincy post after giving away the T20I leadership himself.
Last week, BCCI last week contentiously sacked Kohli from the 50-over captaincy and replaced him with Rohit Sharma at the helm. The Indian board gave no presser or offered any explanation on the issue, stating only that Rohit will be the new ODI captain “going forward” apart from the T20I skipper.
This led to a massive uproar over social media. Fans and media have been calling the board out for their lack of transparency and improper communication with them.
In an interview with ANI, the board president Sourav Ganguly said that Kohli’s removal was down to selectors’ and the belief that there should not be different captains for different white-ball formats. But that was no balm for the hurting passionate Kohli fans, who asked what makes the selectors think along those lines when ODIs and T20Is are so unique to each other?
In all this, there is a fear that the controversy might affect Kohli the batter who is extremely important to India’s fortunes across formats. However, his former India teammate Gambhir doesn’t think the issue will have too much of a psychological impact on Kohli.
“I am sure India will see the best of Virat Kohli, whether it is red-ball cricket or white-ball cricket. At the same time, the kind of passion he has shown over such a long period of time or the energy, you are going to see the same out of Virat Kohli, whether he is the captain or not,”
Gambhir said on Star Sports’ show ‘Follow the Blues’.
Gambhir thinks shedding some of his excessive workload might unleash the best of Kohli the batter in the years to come.
“Same as Rohit Sharma’s role in red-ball cricket, it’s just that captaincy is not there. It might just free Virat Kohli up much more. He might just become more dangerous in white-ball cricket with the pressure of captaincy not being there on his shoulders,”
he added.
In his 95 ODIs as India’s captain – of which India won 68 and lost only 27 – Virat led from the front, scoring a mind-boggling 5,449 runs at an average of 72.65 with a strike-rate of 98.28.
The tally includes 21 centuries and 27 half-centuries. Since the 2019 World Cup, he is averaging 55.18 with a strike-rate of 95.35 in his 18 ODIs as captain.
Under Kohli, India made the final of the 2017 Champions Trophy and the semi-final of the 2019 World Cup. But he is being robbed of the opportunity to captain his country two years before the 2023 World Cup at home.
Kohli’s sacking as ODI captain came a few weeks after India crashed out of the T20 World Cup 2021 in UAE, losing crucial group matches to Pakistan and New Zealand. Prior to the tournament, he had confirmed that he is moving on from leading in the shortest format to manage his “workload” going forward.
However, and this is what makes BCCI’s call contentious, the 33-year-old had said clearly in his statement at the time that he would like to continue leading the ODI side along with the Test team. Since then, multiple reports have done the rounds, but there hasn’t been any official statement from Kohli regarding the change.
