Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli are the two stalwarts of Indian cricket as they have been playing together for India since 2008, and over the years have helped the team to win a plethora of matches with the help of memorable partnerships. However, that doesn’t mean that things have always been hunky-dory as there was a time during the 2019 World Cup when there were rumors of a rift between Kohli and Rohit.

There seems to be some truth behind the social media rumors. Former India fielding coach R Sridhar, in his book, revealed how things went down between Rohit and Kohli but before it could reach a crescendo, Ravi Shastri was around to control the situation.

In his book, R Sridhar wrote, “After the 2019 World Cup, there was a lot of bad press about what allegedly happened in the dressing room during our campaign. We were informed that there was a Rohit camp and a Virat camp, that someone had unfollowed another on social media – stuff that could be unsettling if you allowed it to fester. We landed in the United States (US) some 10 days after the World Cup for a T20 series against West Indies in Lauderhill.”

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He further added, “One of the first things Ravi did on arrival was to call Virat and Rohit to his room and impress upon them that for Indian cricket to be healthy, they needed to be on the same page. ‘Whatever happened on social media, that’s all fine, but you two are the most senior cricketers so this must stop,’ Ravi said in his typical non-nonsense manner. ‘I want you to put all this behind and get together for us to move forward'”.

Once Shastri the head coach intervened, Virat and Rohit set the reset button. Although they didn’t have bad blood between them, there was a risk of murmurs creeping in and causing long-term damage. And as Sridhar rightly points out next, the relationship between Kohli and Rohit significantly improved.

Explaining how the relationship between Virat and Rohit improved since then, R Sridhar wrote: “You could see that things started to get better after that. Ravi’s action was swift, simple, and decisive. It was just getting both the guys together, sitting them down and making them talk. Ravi didn’t waste any time in doing so.”

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He concluded stating, “That he felt encouraged to call the white-ball captain and his deputy to clearly state his mind is indicative of the kind of atmosphere we had facilitated. That Virat and Rohit saw reason in Ravi’s stance and immediately got down to business was the ultimate tribute to our culture ‘one for all, all for one, but team above all’.”