Saurav Ganguly clears the air about Kohli’s captaincy ‘sacking’

Indian skipper Virat Kohli was removed as ODI captain as the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) wanted the same captain to lead the Men in Blue in white-ball cricket.
BCCI President Saurav Ganguly told The Indian Express that the board had requested Kohli to not step down as T20 captain. However, when he decided to resign, the board thought there should be separate captains for white-ball and red-ball cricket.
“We (BCCI) had requested Virat not to step down as T20I captain. There was no plan to change captaincy. But he stepped down as T20I captain and the selectors decided not to split limited-overs captaincy, opting for a complete separation,” said the BCCI president.
“The bottom line is that there can’t be two white-ball captains,” said the former India captain.
Indian cricket is not used to separate captains for different formats. Such practice is widespread in England and Australia. When asked whether two different captains would create conflict in the team, Ganguly replied in the negative.
He pointed out that India had experienced split captaincy for two years earlier when Kohli captained the Test squad while Dhoni was in-charge of the team for white-ball cricket.
The BCCI chief spoke about communicating with Kohli about the ODI captaincy change. “I spoke to him. The chief selector spoke to him,” said the Board chief, wishing Rohit Sharma all the best and expecting that he would do a good job.
A couple of months ago when Kohli announced he was stepping down as T20 captain of the side, he stated his desire to captain the Men in Blue in ODI and Test cricket.
“Understanding workload is a very important thing and considering my immense workload over the last 8-9 years playing all 3 formats and captaining regularly for last 5-6 years, I feel I need to give myself space to be fully ready to lead the Indian team in Test and ODI cricket,” he wrote on Instagram on September 16.
Kohli has enjoyed immense success as India’s white-ball captain. In 95 ODIs, he won in 65. In 45 T20Is, he led India to victory 27 times.