What Led to Virat Kohli Losing ODI & T20I Captaincy?
The BCCI named Rohit Sharma as India's white-ball captain with Kohli set to lead only in Tests.
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When the BCCI named Rohit Sharma as the Indian men’s cricket team’s white-ball captain on Wednesday, it understandably set the cat among the pigeons. As expected it left everyone surprised, wondering how and why this had happened.
Virat Kohli, from whom Rohit takes over, remember had relinquished the T20 captaincy, for India and Royal Challengers Bangalore in the IPL, before the 2021 T20 World Cup. Once he had made the announcement, the fate of the ODI leadership too was reportedly under the scanner.
Kohli had wanted to hold on to the ODI captaincy, as he had announced when he stepped down from the post in T20s. “Understanding workload is a very important thing and considering my immense workload over the last 8-9 years playing all 3 formats and captaining regularly for last 5-6 years, I feel I need to give myself space to be fully ready to lead the Indian team in Test and ODI cricket,” he wrote on Instagram on 16 September.
Clear Distinctions
The policy of having two captains, for Tests and limited overs cricket, is a conversation that has been doing the rounds in the Indian cricket fraternity in recent months. And the selection committee led by Chetan Sharma finally took the plunge ahead of the South Africa tour.
“The BCCI wanted absolute clarity between red-ball and white-ball cricket. The BCCI wanted a complete (leadership) separation between the longest format and shorter formats to avoid any confusion. In the end, it was left to the selectors to take a call. They decided to appoint Rohit as new ODI captain,” a BCCI insider was quoted as saying by The Indian Express.
According a report in PTI, the BCCI waited for Kohli to step down from his post as captain in ODIs however he did not, which forced the board to take the next steps.
Kohli’s Record as ODI Captain
While Kohli now will focus solely on his batting in the limited overs formats, his record as captain in ODI cricket has been brilliant.
Having taken over from MS Dhoni in 2017, Kohli led India to limited-overs series wins in every country. However, the coveted ICC titles did not come by, with India going closest in the 2017 Champions Trophy when they lost to Pakistan in the final.
Kohli, in 95 ODIs as captain won 65 losing only 27 games with one game tied and two seeing no results.
(With Inputs from Indian Express and PTI)
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