India head coach Rahul Dravid refused to open up on the alleged Virat Kohli-Sourav Ganguly saga, saying this is not the right time or place to be discussing that. Dravid said that any internal conversation he might have had with the selectors about Virat Kohli’s white-ball captaincy is not for public consumption.
Kohli in an explosive press conference had contradicted Ganguly’s comments, saying that he wasn’t told to continue as the T20I captain, unlike what the BCCI president said in a recent interview. Ganguly claimed that he personally asked the Delhi batter not to quit as the T20I skipper, but Kohli denied having any such conversation with any BCCI official.
“To be honest, that’s the role of the selectors and I am not going to get into conversations that I might or might not have had,” when asked if he had given his opinion on a change of white ball captaincy.
“It’s not the place and the time to be doing that and discussing that. And what internal conversations I have had is certainly not going to come out in the media and I am not going to start telling people what conversations I have had,” Dravid said in a polite-yet-firm manner.
When Kohli spoke to the media 10 days back about the change in captaincy, it snowballed into a huge storm as he had openly contradicted claims of BCCI president Sourav Ganguly that he was asked to continue as T20 captain as there can’t be two white ball captains.
Dravid, himself a former India captain, however, praised Kohli for his passion for Test cricket and hoped that he would do well in this series.
“Virat has played a huge role in that obviously as a player and a leader. He has been fantastic. He is one of those players who loves Test cricket and really wants to compete.
“Hopefully, he has a great series that benefits the team as well,” Dravid said when asked how does he see Kohli taking the Test team forward.
