Reports: Virat Kohli fought hard to have Shikhar Dhawan in ODI squad for England series in March

While Virat Kohli’s announcement of stepping down as India’s T20I skipper might have taken many by surprise, the chain of events that unfolded in the last few months is enough to draw hints from that the happening was round the corner.

Certain reports were suggestive regarding the possibility of the development were doing rounds already, and while they were all brought to a close when BCCI Treasurer Arun Dhumal rubbished them as “media-created”, the final stamp was put on those by Kohli himself on September 16, when he made his announcement public throughout all his social media platforms.

A Cricbuzz report highlights why the episode of Kohli’s stepping down was surprising but not beyond imagination. “For instance, he had to fight hard to have Shikhar Dhawan in the ODI squad for the India-England series in February- March this year. The selectors, it is learnt, wanted to have another opener who did well in the Vijay Hazare Trophy. Kohli had insisted that Dhawan, who had by then lost his place in the Twenty20 squad, was a must,” it states.

“It is a different matter that the selectors had to appoint Dhawan as captain for the ODIs in an entirely different scenario (for the Sri Lanka series),” the report further states. “So hot was the debate in that March meeting, that the BCCI had to wait for some sort of consensus before making the announcement, almost five days after the squad was picked.”

“However, those in the know say that the equation between the captain and the selectors is not bad and the March meeting was an aberration.”

Kohli stated clearly in his statement that “I have everything to the team during my time as T20 Captain and I will continue to do so for the T20 Team as a batsman moving forward,” while he also stressed on the need of “understanding the workload”.

The reports claim that “Hours before he issued a statement on Twitter Kohli had told BCCI secretary Jay Shah that he wanted to focus on his batting.”

“Following his talks with the Indian captain, the BCCI secretary called for a meeting with the selection committee, where Kohli revealed his decision.”

The meeting was attended by BCCI president Sourav Ganguly, Shah, Chetan Sharma and the rest of the panel, where “Kohli made it clear that he wanted to give the decision makers enough time to decide on the future of the Indian T20I team – hence his decision to step down after the World Cup.”