Virat Kohli vs BCCI: Board president Sourav Ganguly distances himself from controversy, says THIS

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) president Sourav Ganguly chose to distance himself from the raging controversy involving the sacking of Virat Kohli as the ODI captain. Kohli on Wednesday (December 15) revealed in a press conference that BCCI and its members didn’t have any conversation with him regarding the change of guard in Indian ODI team.

The BCCI president Ganguly said ‘no comments’ in Kolkata when asked about the Kohli controversy.  “No comments, BCCI is dealing with it. I said no comments and will not say anything at this point in time,” an adamant Ganguly said on Thursday (December 16).

When Rohit Sharma was appointed as India`s white-ball captain last week, one anticipated the growing animosity within the cricketing circles, but no one could have thought that a leadership change would bring two of the biggest fractions – Kohli and Ganguly at loggerheads.

A day after Kohli was removed as the ODI captain, Ganguly had told ANI that he had indeed spoken to Virat regarding the leadership change adding, that he had requested Virat to also not give up the T20I captaincy.

“It’s a call that the BCCI and the selectors took together. Actually, the BCCI had requested Virat to not 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 said.

“So it was decided that Virat will continue as Test captain and Rohit will take over as the white-ball captain. I as President personally spoke to Virat Kohli and the chairman of selectors has also spoken to him,” the BCCI president had added.

However, Kohli held a press conference on Wednesday as Team India gears up to depart for South Africa. In this, the former white-ball skipper contradicted Ganguly saying he was never asked to leave the T20I captaincy adding that even regarding the ODI captaincy, the communication could have been better.

“Whatever was said about the communication that happened during the decision that was made was inaccurate. I was contacted one and half hours before the selection meeting on 8th for the Test series,” said Kohli.

“And there was no prior communication with me since I announced the T20I captaincy decision up till December 8. The chief selector discussed the Test team to which we both agreed Before ending the call, I was told the five selectors decided that I would not be told that I will not be ODI captain. Which I replied ‘okay fine’. And in the selection call afterwards, we chatted about it briefly this is what happened, there was no communication prior to that at all,” he added.

(with ANI inputs)