Sourav Ganguly Says He Did Not Remove Virat Kohli From Captaincy

Former Cricketer and BCCI president Sourav Ganguly on Tuesday opened up about his relations with Virat Kohli. After India's elimination from the T20 World Cup 2020, Virat Kohli chose to step down from captaincy in 2021 from the T20 format. Later he was removed from the ODI captaincy, followed by his decision to give up the Test captaincy. These back-to-back big decisions sparked a debate among the cricket fraternity over Sourav and Virat's relations. Ganguly has now finally opened up on Kohli's decision of leaving captaincy stating he had no role behind the Delhi cricketer's decision.

In his online interaction show, Dadagiri Unlimited Season 10, where Dada answers his fans, Sourav said "I didn't remove Virat from captaincy.".

"I have said this a lot of times. He wasn't interested in leading in T20Is. So, after he made that decision, I told him, if you're not interested in leading in T20Is, it's better if you step down from entire white-ball cricket. Let there be a white-ball captain and a red-ball captain," Ganguly added.

Ganguly further added in view to Indian cricket's future, he pushed Rohit Sharma to take over as captain in all formats after Virat decided to step down.

"I pushed Rohit Sharma a bit to take up the captaincy role because he wasn't interested in leading in all three formats of the game. So, maybe I have a bit of contribution in that but no matter who is administrating, it's the players who perform well on the field. I was appointed as the President of the BCCI to work for the betterment of Indian cricket, this is a small part of it," Ganguly said.

Virat Kohli led the side in 68 Tests, of which the team emerged victorious on 40 occasions. In ODIs, he won 65 games out of 95 as India captain and 30 out of 50 in the shortest format.