"Didn't Remove Virat Kohli From Captaincy": Former BCCI President Sourav Ganguly, Says "He Wasn't..."

Last year, Indian cricket saw a very controversial episode as Virat Kohli stepped down from Test captaincy. The manner in which Virat Kohli's captaincy stint in the Indian team ended left a lot of questions. While the talismanic batter had himself decided to leave India's T20 captaincy, he was subsequently not persisted with in the ODI format also. Not long after, Kohli announced the decision to step down as the team's Test skipper too.

Former Indian cricket team captain Sourav Ganguly was at the helm of the BCCI as president when Virat Kohli resigned. Many reports claimed that he played a big role in Virat Kohli's removal. However, he has said now that he had no role to play in it.

"I didn't remove Virat from captaincy. I have said this several times. He (Kohli) was not interested to lead in T20Is. So, after he made that decision, I told him, if you're not interested to lead in T20Is, it's better if you step down from entire white-ball cricket formats. Let there be a white-ball captain and a red-ball captain," Sourav Ganguly said on Dadagiri.

"I pushed Rohit Sharma a bit to take up the captaincy role because he wasn't interested to lead in all three formats of the game. So, maybe I have a bit of contribution in that but no matter who is administrating, it's the players who perform well on the field. No body from outside can contribute much.

"I was appointed as the President of BCCI to work for the betterment of Indian cricket, this is a small part of it."

After Kohli's exit as India's captain across three formats, Rohit Sharma was given the team's baton in T20Is, ODIs as well as Tests.

"It has been 7 years of hard work, toil and relentless perseverance everyday to take the team in the right direction. I have done the