Ever since Virat Kohli announced his decision to quit Team India’s T20 captaincy, there has been murmurs of revolt inside the Indian cricket team. Some sections of media reported that it was Ravichandran Ashwin while others claimed it was Ajinkya Rahane and Cheteshwar Pujara who complained against Kohli after the World Test Championships final loss to New Zealand.
There have also been rumours that the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) might also take away the ODI captaincy from Kohli very soon. The BCCI treasurer Arun Dhumal came on record recently and put an end to all these rumours.
“The media must stop writing this rubbish. Let me say this on the record that no Indian cricketer has made any complaint to the BCCI – writte or verbal. The BCCI can’t keep answering every false report that keeps appearing. The other day, we saw some reports saying there will be changes in India’s World Cup squad. Who said that?” BCCI treasurer Arun Dhumal was quoted as saying the Times of India on Wednesday (September 29).
Initially, it was suggested that Ashwin had gone and spoken to the BCCI top brass over issues with Kohli’s leadership and most recently, reports emerged that Rahane and Pujara had called up by the board secretary Jay Shah to give their verdict on Kohli’s captaincy.
In the past few days, suggestions of a number of senior players being unhappy with Kohli’s captaincy have been made. Dhumal claimed that such rumours only do damage to Indian cricket.
“This kind of reporting harms Indian cricket more than anything else. We can understand if senior journalists – who have followed the game for a very long time and tracked it so devotedly – believe the Indian team should do this or do that. That’s an opinion and we respect that. It’s an observation and that’s their job. I myself enjoy reading good reports. But to concoct tales and say this person said this or that person said, without substantiating it, is not done,” Dhumal added.
With the BCCI treasurer deciding to put the record straight, it is now clear that the rumours were without any substance. Meanwhile, Kohli has gone on to announce that he will step down from the captaincy of Royal Challengers Bangalore as well at the completion of IPL 2021.
The Indian skipper will be leading the T20 side for the final time at the T20 World Cup 2021 in UAE and Oman next month.
