'Didn't remove Virat Kohli from captaincy': Former skipper and BCCI chief Sourav Ganguly recalls controversy

Sourav Ganguly recalled Virat Kohli's infamous resignation as India captain in late 2021. Kohli announced his resignation as the T20I captain before the start of the 2021 T20 World Cup, in the UAE. Soon after the World Cup, he was sacked as the ODI captain and after the end of the India-South Africa Tests, which concluded in early 2022 inthe African nation, Kohli stepped down as the Test captain as well, bringing curtains to his captaincy tenure. Back then, Ganguly was also criticised by many for playing a role in Kohli's resignation as he was serving as the BCCI chief.

Now, Ganguly has recalled the entire controversy and stated that he didn't play any role in Kohli leaving captaincy altogether. The former Indian captain said that he just asked Kohli to step down as the white-ball skipper after the latter had announced his resignation from T20Is.

"I didn't remove Virat from captaincy. I have told this a lot of times. He was not interested to lead in T20Is. So, after he made that decision, I told him, if you're not interested to lead in T20Is, it's better if you step down from entire white-ball cricket. Let there be a white-ball captain and a red-ball captain," Ganguly said on Dadagiri Unlimited Season 10, a reality show.

In addition, Ganguly revealed he had to push Rohit Sharma to take over as the all-format captain after Kohli's resignation in January 2022. "I pushed Rohit Sharma a bit to take up the captaincy role because he wasn't interested to lead in all three formats of the game. So, maybe I have a bit of contribution in that but no matter who is administrating, it's the players who perform well on the field. I was appointed as the President of BCCI to work for the betterment of Indian cricket, this is a small part of it," he added.

Back then, Kohli wanted to carry on as the ODI and Test captain despite stepping down as the T20I skipper in September 2021. However, the board eventually sacked him as the ODI captain before he moved aside from the additional responsibility in the red-ball format. At present, Kohli is gearing up for India's two-match Test series versus South Africa, starting on Dec 26.