cricket

Updated: Jun 06, 2020 05:03 IST

What is happening between Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma? Is everything alright between India’s captain and vice-captain? The hopes of getting concrete answers from the man himself went up in smoke after India captain Virat Kohli decided against holding a customary press conference before leaving for the West Indies series.

Kohli will not be holding a press conference, which is a norm before the Indian team leaves for a series. The Indian side is supposed to leave for the US on Monday, where they will play two T20Is before travelling to the West Indies for the final T20I, three ODIs, and two Test matches. The members of the Test side – barring those who are already in West Indies with India A team – will travel later.

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Kohli reportedly will attend a promotional event on Monday morning before boarding the flight but will not take any questions regarding the West Indies tour. Rohit, on the other hand, has remained tight-lipped about the whole incident.

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“There will be no pre-departure press conference by the Indian team leaving for the West Indies. There is no window for a press conference ahead of the departure. We tried but it was not possible,” a BCCI source told ANI.

There were a lot of anticipation about Kohli’s press conference after multiple media reports about a rift between him and Rohit started doing the rounds ever since the Men in Blue returned home after their semi-final exit from World Cup 2019.

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The reports were fueled after Rohit Sharma “unfollowed” skipper Virat Kohli’s wife Anushka Sharma on Instagram.

The trouble apparently started brewing post the loss to England in the World Cup. The bowling unit supposedly felt humiliated post a team meeting after the defeat in the group-stage encounter.

“The bowlers were given a showdown after the loss and they felt that it wasn’t just a case of bad bowling and there were more areas that needed to be looked into before pointing fingers at the bowling unit,” a source in the know of developments said.

Another board functionary said that the reports of rift need to be addressed at the earliest to avoid a scenario wherein the performance of the team can start getting affected.

“It is like any other discord at a workplace which can affect the performance of the team. If this is not nipped in the bud immediately, there is a real danger of things affecting the spirit of the team and as a result, their performance.

“You cannot have two leaders of a team or their media teams taking pot-shots at one another. There is no denial of a rift and the big shot administrator says that it is a media creation. If that is the case why are they giving impetus to the media creation rather than dispelling it,” the functionary said.