Kohli-Kumble rift will be at the cynosure in the BCCI-COA meeting on June 24

As Anil Kumble has closed the door on continuing as the coach of the Indian team, the Supreme Court appointed-COA has convened a meeting on Saturday. The main agenda of this meeting will be the rift between Kohli-Kumble. The Vinod Rai-led panel was not aware of the matter until they met both parties separately over payment review discussions in the last week of May.

Kumble was part of the team for the last one year. Kohli had a word with the BCCI and COA and expressed concerns over Kumble’s overbearing methods. In light of the skipper’s views, the 46-year-old Kumble quit two days after the conclusion of the ICC Champions Trophy. Team India has had three team managers during the legendary leg-spinner’s stint and all three have been asked to submit their reports.

In Kumble’s first series as the coach – 4-Test series in the West Indies – Riyaz Bagwan was the manager of the team. Later, Anil Patel of Gujarat took over and was involved with the team throughout the strenuous home Test season while Kapil Malhotra travelled with the team to England for the Champions Trophy.

While things were smooth when Riyaz was the manager, the reports of Anil Patel and Kapil Malhotra will be critical as this is the phase when things started to turn ugly. The office bearers of BCCI have raised concerns whether some members of the board added fuel to the fire and eventually led to the exit of Kumble. There also have been reports of reservations to make all three manager’s reports available to the COA in the meeting.

COA will do their work and find out what and where things went wrong. According to the reports, the feud began during the Australian home Test series when Kuldeep Yadav made his debut in the final Test, a selection which Kohli had no idea about. It all went downhill post then and eventually led Kumble to step down from his position.