The Virat Kohli captaincy saga will go down in history as one of the most controversial and talked about topics in Indian cricket. Kohli’s removal as captain of India’s ODI team, how he was informed about it and the contrasting take to BCCI president Sourav Ganguly’s version of how his decision to step down as T20I captain was received by the board has ensured that it is not the last Indian cricket have heard of the topic.
Kohli mentioned that the selectors had informed him about his removal as ODI captain one-and-a-half hours prior to the announcement of the Test team for the tour of South Africa on December 8, which again has sparked a debate – whether the selectors simply informing Kohli and not considering his take was the right way to go about it.
Weighing in on the matter, former India all-rounder Kirti Azad feels the selectors should have reached out to Ganguly on the matter, and only after his approval, should have made the call. A norm that has been followed since ages, Azad reckons getting a stamp of approval from the board’s president is essential and fruitful practice.
“If this was to be decided by the selectors, they should have gone up to the president. Generally, what happens is that when a team is selected – when I was also a national selector – we would select the team and go to the president of the board. He would see, okay it, sign it and then it would be announced. But it is always the custom that a team after being selected goes to have a look,” Azad told News18.
During the press conference that got everyone talking, Kohli mentioned that he said ‘ok, fine’ to the selectors upon being informed of his sacking as India’s ODI captain, but Azad reckons the star batter would have surely felt hurt by the manner in which it was done. Azad went on to say that although he doesn’t mean to disrespect the selectors, Kohli’s experience of playing cricket is far more.
“So obviously, if you are changing the captain for any format, you write and inform the president. Virat is not upset, but I feel he is hurt for the way he has been informed. So once it went to Sourav, he could have also unofficially spoken about it. You can understand, I don’t want to say this. All the selectors are really great guys, but if you put their total number of matches, it won’t be even half of what Virat has played,” the former India all-rounder pointed out.
