People wouldn’t have been able to digest his success: Shastri on Kohli stepping down from Test captaincy

Former India coach Ravi Shastri, who is also considered very close to former all formats captain of India, Virat Kohli, has taken an indirect jibe at the BCCI management which includes President Sourav Ganguly by saying that people would have been jealous of Kohli’s success. 

Shastri reasoned that for the next two years India would have played a lot of Tests at home and Kohli, who already was the most successful Indian Test skipper at the time of his stepping down, would have had more wins under his belt. 

"For sure, he could have led India for at least 2 years because next two years India would be playing at home and who is coming over - 9 and 10 jacks, going by the rankings,” he said. 

“But he would have then made it to 50-60 wins under his captaincy and a lot of people will not be able to digest that fact,” added the 59-year-old in his chat with India Today.  

Saying that the kind of results Kohli has achieved would have been revered in any other country while he is being questioned in India just after a 1-2 loss to South Africa, Shastri explained that it was things of this sort that would have made the 33-year-old Kohli think about exploring his batting more and giving up on the pressure of captaincy.

"He only knows how much is he enjoying captaincy. When Sachin Tendulkar and MS Dhoni were not enjoying captaincy, they left. Similarly, when Virat thought that he had won 40 matches, six years he had been leading and now he wants to enjoy his cricket. He wants to focus on his batting and release a bit of pressure and it happens with a lot of individuals," said Shastri.

Kohli had stepped down from the T20I captaincy after the T20 World Cup 2021 and was unceremoniously sacked from the ODI captaincy by the Ganguly led BCCI, about which both Kohli and Ganguly made contrasting comments. And just days after all that, he stepped down from Test captaincy after the series loss against South Africa.