Xtra Time Web Desk: Former Australia captain Ricky Ponting reveals on Virat Kohli’s decision to step away from T20I captaincy, a decision which he had announced back in September, before the start of India’s T20 World Cup campaign in the UAE.
While speaking to former cricketer Isa Guha on the first episode of The ICC Review, Ponting revealed in a conversation with Virat Kohli in the 2021 season of IPL, Kohli had talked about stepping away from white-ball captaincy. This implies that Kohli had made up his mind five months before he had made the official announcement on Twitter.
“Yes, it did actually (surprise me),” said Ponting. “Probably the main reason why is I had a chat and good catch-up with Virat during the first part of the IPL (2021) before it got postponed.
“He was talking then about stepping away (from captaincy) from white-ball cricket and how passionate he was to continue on to be Test match captain. He just loved and cherished that job and that post so much. Obviously, the Indian Test team had achieved a lot under his leadership. When I heard it, I was really, really surprised.
“You only have to watch him on the field for an hour of the day’s play to realise how passionate he is about that job and the role, and how much he wants the team to win and how much he wants the best for Indian cricket.”
Soon after T20 World Cup, Kohli was removed from ODI captaincy by selectors and top brass of BCCI which led to a huge controversy in the Indian cricket team. Later in January, a day after India’s 2-1 Test series defeat in South Africa, Kohli had taken to Twitter to announce his decision to step down from Test captaincy role.
The legendary cricketer then tried to decode the reason behind Kohli’s call admitting that India has always been the world’s most difficult team to captain owing to immense pressure from the fans.”I was shocked, but then I started thinking about other things, even my own time as captain. I have gone on record and said that I probably think I played a couple of years longer than I should have in hindsight. I think I might have been captain for a couple of years longer than I should have.
“So I think there is potentially a shelf-life for international cricket captains and even coaches. Virat’s been there for close to seven years now. If there’s a country in the world that’s the most difficult to captain, it’s probably India because of just how popular the game is and how much every single Indian loves to see the fortunes of the Indian cricket team, whether they are good or bad. You weigh all those things up.”