Former India captain Virat Kohli is ‘quite disappointed’ with the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI)’s recent diktat limiting how much time men’s cricketers’ families can spend with them on international tours. He felt that these rules are being brought on by people who don’t understand what the presence of families means to the players, saying that ‘maybe’ such rule-makers ‘need to be kept away’.
The reports about these rules (they were never made public by the BCCI) said that for every 45-day long tour, families would be allowed two weeks with the cricketer. This meant no player got that privilege in the recent 2025 Champions Trophy unless they made their own arrangement or took the board’s prior permission.
“It is very difficult to explain to people how grounding it is to come back to your family every time you have something intense happening on the outside,” Kohli said at the Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s Innovation Lab Indian Sports Summit.
“I don’t think people have an understanding of what value it brings. I feel quite disappointed about that. People who have no control over what is going on are kind of brought into conversations and put out in the forefront. Maybe they need to be kept away,” Kohli, who has often been accompanied by his wife, actress Anushka Sharma, and their kids on tours, added.
This rule and others — like players being mandated to be together in the team bus and avoiding traveling on their own — came into being after India lost the 2024-25 Border-Gavaskar Trophy series to Australia. The rubber was decided on the final day when India had lost the services of still-injured Jasprit Bumrah, which allowed the hosts to win the last Test and take home a scoreline of 3-1.
