The alleged war between Virat Kohli and Sourav Ganguly was one of the huge talking points of the 2021-2022 season in Indian cricket and now BCCI chief selector Chetan Sharma has revealed the truth behind it claiming that Kohli lied about Ganguly in a press conference as revenge for removing him from India’s ODI captaincy.
Virat Kohli had stepped down as India’s T20I captain before the T20 World Cup 2021 in UAE but led the team in the tournament. However, he had shown interest in leading the Indian team in ODIs and Tests.
While Kohli presented his side of the story, that he was not informed well in advance about his sacking and was still eager to lead in the longer formats, his press conference with the reporters wasn’t well received by the then Sourav Ganguly-led BCCI. However, days after this announcement, the BCCI removed Kohli from ODI captaincy as well, citing not wanting two different captains in limited overs formats.
Sourav Ganguly, the then BCCI president revealed that he himself had called Virat Kohli with Chetan Sharma on the line as well and requested him not to quit T20I captaincy. However, Virat Kohli denied that whole thing during a presser on the eve of India leaving for the South Africa tour, leading to a spat between two India captains.
The Truth Is Virat Kohli Was Lying, Sourav Ganguly Told Him To Think Over It: Chetan Sharma
Now Chetan Sharma, who was privy to everything which went down between Kohli and Ganguly, has spilled the beans on everything and said it became Kohli vs BCCI from Kohli vs Ganguly.
“Any row between player and BCCI President is dangerous as it becomes players vs BCCI. Out of this who is wrong is judged later, but it becomes an attack on BCCI directly. All players are warned that the harm will come to players only.
Virat Kohli felt he lost the captaincy because of BCCI President. There were 9 people in the selection committee video conference, Ganguly may have told him ‘think about it once’. I think Kohli didn’t hear it, there were 9 others there including myself and all other selectors, BCCI officials – Kohli might not have heard him,” Chetan Sharma revealed in a sting on Zee News Channel.
Virat Kohli became bigger than the game in his mind: Chetan Sharma
Chetan Sharma further added that ‘Kohli tried to defame Ganguly in the media’ during his press conference (by deliberately speaking about the change in captaincy) ahead of the SA tour as he felt it was the former Indian skipper behind his ODI captaincy sacking.
“The PC before leaving for South Africa is about the team but why he bought the topic of captaincy I don’t know, maybe Kohli did it on purpose. The truth is Kohli was lying, Ganguly told him to think over it. Why Kohli lied, no one knows till now. It became a controversy, it was Board vs Player. Why he lied, maybe he felt Sourav Ganguly played a big hand in Virat Kohli losing the white-ball captaincy,” Chetan Sharma added.
Chetan revealed that Sourav Ganguly was not inclined toward Rohit Sharma as India’s captain, but wasn’t simply in favor of Kohli.