Not correct to say there were differences between Virat Kohli, Anil Kumble, says ex-CoA chief Vinod Rai

Anil Kumble has served Indian cricket with distinction. The wily leg-spinner not only returned with a plethora of wickets for Team India (956 scalps overall) but also bowled plenty of decisive and economical spells across formats, along with scoring some handy runs down the order.

In early 2016, Kumble became India's head coach for a year with skipper Virat Kohli at the helm. Despite success on the field, Kumble and Kohli's were reportedly the best as the latter's feedback on the former Indian captain led to his exit from the top post. Since then, a lot has been said and written about the strained relationship between Kohli-Kumble. Former BCCI CoA head Vinod Rai has now once again opened up on the whole saga and made a big claim that there were no such 'differences' between the two superstar cricketers.

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"This is not correct to say that there were differences between Virat Kohli and Anil Kumble. There were no differences between them. I have only written that when the time came to renew Anil Kumble's contract, we consulted the team and then Virat said that the junior members of the team feel intimidated by Anil Kumble because of his discipline. There was nothing like the difference between Kumble and Kohli. Neither I had any such information nor I have written, " said Vinod Rai while in conversation with news agency ANI.

"The board did try to convince Virat Kohli but the selection of coach is done by Cricket's Advisory Committee (CAC). The CAC comprising Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman only selected Anil Kumble as coach earlier. I wrote this thing in the book when CAC was selecting the coach that you people should speak to the team and the coach because we were outsiders. If senior players like Sachin, Sourav and VVS speak to the players then the impact is different and if we speak, then it will not be that effective. So, these three spoke to the captain and the coach, " explained Vinod.

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He further added, "There is no doubt that Kumble was a good coach we could not have got a better coach than Anil Kumble and that is why, Kumble was selected. The only misfortune was that Kumble got a contract for only one year and I just said that CAC also reappointed to select Anil Kumble but the Kumble-Kohli issue had absolutely no issues. Nothing of this sort came to our notice. I have written in the book that this thing came to our notice in April and we took charge on 30th January. So, we did not get the chance to see it in the space of two months."

At present, both have moved on from the forgettable episode. While Kumble is the head coach of IPL franchise Punjab Kings (PBKS), Kohli's India captaincy era got over officially in early 2022. He had already resigned as the Royal Challengers Bangalore(RCB) captain last year.