Virat Kohli announced his decision to step down from Test captaincy on Twitter and since then the debate is just not stopping about what actually triggered the 33-year-old to do so. Why did Virat, who recently stepped down from ODI and T20I captaincy respectively, all of a sudden relinquished the Test captaincy?
Where everyone is scratching their head helplessly, cricket legend Sunil Gavaskar has come out with his statement on the big decision.
Sunil Gavaskar told India Today that Virat Kohli decided to step down from the captaincy only after the Test series loss to South Africa. According to Gavaskar, there was probably a thing in Virat Kohli’s mind that he can also be removed from the Test captaincy after the defeat in this Test series.
He said, ‘I am not surprised at all when Virat Kohli quits the captaincy. I thought that after the defeat, he would announce to leave the captaincy in the press conference itself, but then this decision would have seemed angry, so maybe he stayed for 24 hours."
"I have a feeling that Virat Kohli realized that after the loss in the Test series, he can also be removed from the Test captaincy. Maybe that’s why he left the captaincy," he further added.
Virat Kohli was removed from the ODI captaincy just before the South Africa tour. There was also a dispute between Virat Kohli and BCCI. There were reports that Virat Kohli wanted to continue captaining the ODI team but the BCCI decided to keep the same captain for T20 and ODI. Now it is difficult to guess what is the reason for leaving the Test captaincy.
Gavaskar on being asked about who could the next in line to succeed Virat for the coveted role, proposed Rishabh Pant's name.
“I would look at Rishabh Pant as the next India captain. And for one reason only, just like Rohit Sharma was given the captaincy of Mumbai Indians, look at the change in his batting after that,” he said.
“Suddenly the responsibility of being the captain meant that instead of playing those beautiful cameos, he was scoring 100, 150, 200. And that sense of responsibility if given to Rishabh Pant will make him score many of those wonderful hundreds that he scored,” Gavaskar added.
