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India's most successful Test captain Virat Kohli stepped down as captain after a 1-2 series defeat against South Africa. The decision to relinquish Test captaincy came a day after the completion of the Test series. While there have been several speculations about the turn of events that led to the big decision, former Pakistan fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar in an interview with Sports Tak said that he believes “the atmopshere had become very negative in front of Kohli”.
In a conversation during the Howzat Legends Cricket League being played in Oman, Akhtar said, “The atmosphere had become very negative in front of Virat Kohli. I was also in Dubai during the 2021 T20 World Cup and at the same time, I was feeling that if India loses this World Cup, then not much good is going to happen for Kohli. Because against him there were not one or two people but many people who were not happy with Kohli. That is the reason why Kohli has resigned from the captaincy.”
Akhtar also spoke about how stressful captaining a national team can be. He says that the 33-year-old can now enjoy his cricket as there won’t be any captaincy pressure on him.
“Captaincy is not an easy task and you have to look at many things. Along with this, you have to fight stress. Well now that Kohli has freed himself by resigning, so I would like to say this now Kohli can enjoy cricket again without any worries. Whatever happened during this time, Kohli should forget everything by forgiving the people involved and act like a better person." the former Pakistan speedster added.
When Kohli took over the Test captaincy from Mahendra Singh Dhoni in the year 2014, India were ranked seventh in the ICC Test Rankings and when he left the captaincy, team India were at number one position in the ICC Test Rankings. Not only this, Kohli also led India to a Test series win on Australian soil.
The Delhi-born batter had earlier stepped down as India’s T20I captain after the T20 World Cup 2021. Later, he was also sacked as ODI captain. Meanwhile, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is yet to announce Kohli's successor as Test captain.
