Former Indian skipper, Sourav Ganguly, who is serving as the BCCI president has said that he was surprised after Virat Kohli announced that he will be stepping down from the T20I captaincy after the ongoing T20 World Cup 2021. Ganguly stated that the decision was Kohli’s own and he might have arrived as it after the England tour.
Virat Kohli left quite a lot of people in the cricket fraternity shocked by announcing his decision after arriving in the UAE from the 4-month-long England tour in September. Days later he also announced that he will be resigning from the captaincy of the RCB and explained that the idea was to manage his workload and focus more on the ODI and Test captaincy.
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Later, numerous reports popped up and suggested that Kohli’s decision was also based on some suggestions from the BCCI officials. Bringing an end to all the rumors and speculations, Sourav Ganguly has said that BCCI does not do “things like that”.
During a chat with India Today, Sourav Ganguly explained, “I was surprised (that Virat Kohli decided to step down as T20 captain). This decision must have been taken only after the England tour and it is his decision. There was no pressure from our end, we didn’t tell him anything. We don’t do things like that because I myself have been a player so I understand. It is very difficult to be a captain in all formats for this long.”
He added, “I was a captain for six years, it looks good from the outside, there is respect and all that. But you get burnt out on the inside and it happens to any captain. Not just to Tendulkar or Ganguly or Dhoni or Kohli but to the captain that will come up next as well. It is a tough job.”
Meanwhile, Ganguly also played down questions regarding the current form of Virat Kohli and said that even the greatest in the business, will go through lean periods in their long careers.
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Sourav Ganguly further elaborated, “This happens (dip in Kohli’s form). Virat has been playing for about 11 years, not every season can be great. He is human not a machine. So I am not surprised. His graph has gone up so high, then it came down, then it went even higher and that is when you see a player like Virat. If you play for a long time this sort of up and down will happen.”
