Virat Kohli fought with Indian selectors to include Shikhar Dhawan in ODI squad for England series in March: Reports
India won the series by 2-1.
Indian captain Virat Kohli took the cricket fraternity by surprise after he decided to step down as T20I captain after the T20 World Cup in the UAE and Oman. Under Virat Kohli’s tutelage, India won 27 games but lost 14 games and two games ended in a tie.
The T20 World Cup will get underway from October 17 onwards. The Men in Blue will see Virat Kohli lead the team in the T20I World Cup for one last time. It is never easy in terms of arriving at a decision and Kohli contemplated a lot and had discussions with his close mates.
“Of course, arriving at this decision took a lot of time. After a lot of contemplation and discussions with my close people, Ravi bhai and also Rohit, who have been an essential part of the leadership group, I’ve decided to step down as the T20 Captain after this T20 World Cup in Dubai in October.”
Virat Kohli fought with selectors to have Shikhar Dhawan in the ODI squad for England series
Meanwhile, a report in Cricbuzz states that Virat Kohli fought with the selectors for some other reason. The selection committee overlooked Shikhar Dhawan in the home ODI series against England in late March. As a result, Virat Kohli was unhappy.
“For instance, he had to fight hard to have Shikhar Dhawan in the ODI squad for the India-England series in February- March this year. The selectors, it is learnt, wanted to have another opener who did well in the Vijay Hazare Trophy. Kohli had insisted that Dhawan, who had by then lost his place in the Twenty20 squad, was a must,” the report states.
“It is a different matter that the selectors had to appoint Dhawan as captain for the ODIs in an entirely different scenario (for the Sri Lanka series). So hot was the debate in that March meeting, that the BCCI had to wait for some sort of consensus before making the announcement, almost five days after the squad was picked,” the report further added.
“However, those in the know say that the equation between the captain and the selectors is not bad and the March meeting was an aberration.”
Meanwhile, the 32-year-old Indian skipper Kohli made it clear that: “I have everything to the team during my time as T20 Captain and I will continue to do so for the T20 Team as a batsman moving forward,” while he also highlighted the need of “understanding the workload”.
