Top Brands left divided over Virat Kohli's 'leave India' remark

He is generally not known for courting controversy. Indian captain Virat Kohli is a character who is loved and admired for his tireless commitment to the game and performance day in day out. But the ace cricketer has recently found himself in the middle of a controversy, thanks to a remark he made while addressing a fan who said he don’t fins anything special in his batting and that he liked Australian and English batsmen more than the Indians.

Kohli asked the fan to “live somewhere outside India” if he did not like the Indian batsmen. It all happened when the 30-year-old cricketer was reading questions sent by the fans on Twitter for his official Virat Kohli Official app. The question that left Kohli a bit angry was one among them.

“Okay, I don’t think you should live in India, then you should go and live somewhere else no. Why are you living in our country and loving other countries? But I don’t mind you not liking me, but I don’t think you should live in our country and like other things. Get your priorities right,” Kohli said.

The Indian skipper’s reply did not go down well with several supporters who saw it as an arrogant reply. In fact, the brands that Kohli endorses were also divided over his words. While people from some of the brands he endorses said the matter was “blown out of proportion”, others said as an icon, Kohli should have refrained from making such a remark.

Abhishek Ganguly, managing director of Puma in India, was quoted by Economic Times as saying, “Anyone who has seen the entire video on Virat’s fan app will know that he was speaking in jest in a section called ‘Virat responds to mean tweets’.” Last year, Puma assisted Kohli to launch his own lifestyle brand One8.

An emotional outburst

Shripal Morakhia, promoter of Smaaash Entertainment in which former India captain Sachin Tendulkar has invested, called it an “emotional outburst” and said Kohli has performed in all forms of cricket and should not be judged the way he is being.

However, not members of all brands agreed. A senior official of a beverage that Kohli endorses said, “We are living in the age of social media and he being a youth icon and making statements like he did puts our brand in bad light too.” Kohli, who recently completed 10,000 runs in ODIs as the fastest batsman, endorses 18 global and Indian brands.

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