BCCI rubbishes Kohli’s claims, says he was in loop about ODI captain switch

Hours after Indian Test skipper Virat Kohli claimed that he was sacked as the ODI captain 90 minutes before the team’s selection for the tour to South Africa, the BCCI has rubbished it, stating that Kohli was in the loop on the captaincy issue and that the board did talk to him over reconsidering his decision to quit T20I captaincy.

“Virat Kohli can’t say that we didn’t keep him in the loop. We spoke to Virat in September and asked him not to quit the T20 captaincy. Once Virat gave up the T20I captaincy on his own, it was difficult to have two white ball captains. Chetan Sharma told Virat about the ODI captaincy on the morning of the meeting,” a BCCI official told a prominent website on Wednesday.

Earlier, in the day, Kohli, while speaking to reporters said that the BCCI never asked him to reconsider quitting T20 captainship as claimed by the Board.

“Whatever was said about the communication that happened about the decision that was made was inaccurate,” Kohli said.

Also read: Sacked as ODI captain 90 minutes before SA tour selection, says Kohli

He was alluding to BCCI president Sourav Ganguly’s statement that the board had requested Kohli not to quit as split captaincy might not work in the white-ball format.

“I was contacted one and half hours before selection meeting on 8th for Test series and there was no prior communication to me at all since I announced my decision on T20 captaincy …the chief selector discussed the Test team to which we both agreed. Before ending the call, I was told that the five selectors have decided that I will not be the ODI captain to which I replied okay fine. In the selection call afterwards we chatted about it briefly and that’s what happened,” he said.

Speaking about him quitting the T20 captaincy, he said, “When I communicated with the BCCI first about quitting the T20I captaincy, I told them that this is my point of view, these are the reasons for my decision. It was received quite well. No one took offense, no one had any hesitation. No one told me that I should not leave the T20I captaincy,” Kohli asserted.

While announcing his decision to quit T20I captaincy, Kohli said he had expressed his wish to continue as ODI and Test captain “unless the BCCI office-bearers or selectors want me not to do so”.

The Test skipper’s statement contradicts the claims made by Ganguly, who a few days back had said that he and later Chetan Sharma personally spoke to Kohli about the board’s decision to replace him with Rohit Sharma as the new ODI captain.

“…Actually, the BCCI had requested Virat not to step down as the T20I skipper but obviously, he did not agree. And the selectors then did not feel it right to have two different captains for two white-ball formats,” Ganguly had told ANI.