Why was there a sudden fallout between Virat Kohli and Anil Kumble?

A year ago Virat Kohli and Anil Kumble held a joint press conference where they spoke highly of each other A year later Anil Kumble was almost forced to quit as the head coach of team India Virat Kohli has not come out to discuss the issue or clarify his stance

A year ago, captain Virat Kohli and the then newly appointed coach Anil Kumble arrived together for their first joint press conference at the M Chinnaswamy stadium. 

It was well known that the Indian skipper wanted Ravi Shastri to continue as the team India coach. But the peerless Kumble walked away with the one year contract. 

However, in that joint press-conference, the two men almost seemed to complement each other. They spoke highly of each other and also showed tremendous respect towards one another. The Times of India reported the captain saying, “For me, it doesn't matter where the coach is from. What is important is how he treats the players, how he makes them feel comfortable and how much he can provide to the players.”

"These are the three factors that you look for if you are assigning a head coach. That's what I believe. And Anil Bhai obviously has all three in abundance. He understands all the players. He is involved with the players in some way or the other, and that is his biggest quality," Kohli further added.

However, a lot of water has flown under the bridge, and we now have Kumble no longer as the coach of team India.

So what happened? 

The players started getting wary of Kumble’s ‘taskmaster’ way of doing things. It brought the best out of the players, but they still did not like his approach. Kohli himself, allegedly, complained to Sourav Ganguly, currently a Cricket Advisory Committee member, about Kumble’s overbearing nature.

Kohli, however, has never come out to deal with the issue openly. He made his preferences clear to BCCI, who invited fresh applications for the post of coach. Kohli and Kumble stopped talking six months ago and almost started avoiding each other. Kohli felt that Kumble was trying to tread in what he thought was his territory.

Kumble, on the other hand, tried to be as dignified as possible. In his resignation letter, he said that he respected the role boundaries between a captain and a coach. He was to fly to the Caribbean to join the Indian team in their tour against West Indies. However, after the Sunday’s meeting with Virat Kohli and BCCI members, he realised that all was over. And yet, other than the resignation letter, he did not say a word.