Former India coach Ravi Shastri has made a revelation that Indian skipper Virat Kohli might leave the captaincy in the One-Day International in the near future. Kohli, recently, left the captaincy of the T20I side at the end of India’s campaign in the T20 World Cup 2021 in the UAE.
Ravi Shastri’s tenure as the head coach of Team India also ended in the same game. India failed to make it to the semifinals of the tournament and their last league game against Namibia proved to be the last match of Kohli and Shastri’s powerful combination.
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Virat Kohli announced that he will step down from the T20I captaincy at the end of the T20 World Cup 2021. The speculations were doing rounds that he may leave the captaincy of the ODI cricket as well but as of now there hasn’t been any confirmation of the same.
However, the outgoing Indian coach Ravi Shastri gave air to the fire by saying that Kohli can do the same to the ODI cricket as well.
“In red-ball cricket, India has been the No1 team in the world for the last 5 years under Virat Kohli. So, unless he wants to give up or if he is mentally fatigued and says he wants to focus on his batting – which can happen in the near future, don’t think it will happen immediately – it can happen,” Ravi Shastri told India Today in an exclusive interview.
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“The same might happen with the ODI. He might say he wants to focus just on Test captaincy. It is his mind and body that will make that decision.
“He won’t be the first, there are many players in the past who have had very successful tenures and captains and then given it up to focus on batting,” said Shastri.
Rohit Sharma was named Kohli’s successor in for the T20I team. The national selectors gave Kohli a break for the home series against New Zealand, where he will miss the T20I series and the first Test of the two-match series. Kohli will return to captain India in the second Test.
