Virat Kohli quits Test captaincy: Sanjay Manjrekar to Gautam Gambhir, ex-cricketers react

Virat Kohli is done and dusted with his Test captaincy role. It has come as a shock to most of the Indian cricket fraternity. Let us look at how some of the ex-cricketers reacted to it.

The Indian cricket fraternity continues to reel from the shocking news of Virat Kohli stepping down as the Test captain. It all happened after India’s recent 1-2 Test series loss in South Africa, while he has now quit the captaincy across formats. In the meantime, numerous ex-cricketers have reacted to it.

Former Indian opener and Kohli’s Delhi teammate Gautam Gambhir was bold in his comments. “What new do you want to see? Captaincy is not anyone’s birthright. People like MS Dhoni have given the captaincy baton to Virat Kohli. He has played under Virat Kohli as well. He has won three ICC trophies and four IPL trophies as well,” he told Star Sports.

“I think Kohli should look to score runs, and that is more important. When you dream of playing for India, you don’t dream of becoming a captain. You dream of winning games for India, and nothing changes, except that you are not going out there to do the toss and set the field placement. Still, your energy and intensity should remain the same because it’s an honour playing for the country,” concluded Gambhir.

Meanwhile, former Pakistan skipper Rashid Latif decided to take a jab at the ongoing saga between Kohli and the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) president Sourav Ganguly. “The real reason why these things happen is that you have a tiff with the board. Irrespective of what Virat says that it’s his decision or what Sourav Ganguly tweets, this is a battle of two stalwarts,” he reckoned.

In the meantime, legendary former Indian skipper Sunil Gavaskar has given his choice over Kohli’s replacement. “If you ask me, I would look at Rishabh Pant as the next India captain. For one reason only, just like Rohit Sharma was given the captaincy of Mumbai Indians (MI) when Ricky Ponting stepped down, look at the change in his batting after that. Suddenly the responsibility of being captain made him convert those beautiful cameos of the 30s, 40s and 50s into hundreds, 150s and 200s,” he told India Today.

Also, former Indian cricketer and now-turned commentator Sanjay Majrekar had some strong words for Kohli. “It’s come one after the other in a brief period - giving up the white-ball captaincy and IPL captaincy as well. It also was unexpected, but, interestingly, all these three resignations of important positions have come so quickly, one after the other. I think, in some way, he wants to make himself unsackable as captain. When he gets that vibe that his captaincy is under threat, he tends to quit,” he told ESPNCricinfo.