Mumbai: Indian captain Virat Kohli categorically refuted Monday rumours of a rift with his deputy Rohit Sharma, saying ‘people feeding off lies’ are being disrespectful to the players’ personal lives.
After India’s ouster from the World Cup, stories of fissures in the Indian camp emerged with claims that Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli are not seeing eye to eye. Theories of split captaincy were also floated.
“In my opinion, it’s baffling. It’s absolutely ridiculous to read these kinds of stuff that comes out there. I have been to public events where we have been praised and here we are feeding off lies, overlooking facts, turning a blind eye to all good things that happened and creating fantasies and scenarios in our head. We want to accept that this is the truth,” Virat Kohli told reports ahead of the team’s departure to the West Indies.
Adding fuel to all the speculations was a cryptic instagram post by Kohli’s actress wife Anushka Sharma, which was later deleted.
“I have seen this for too long now, bringing personal lives into the picture. It’s disrespectful after a moment. I have played the game for 11 years and Rohit has played for 10-12 years and it’s bizarre that people are creating this stuff from outside,” the skipper said, with coach Ravi Shastri by his side.
Shastri made a tongue-in-cheek comment about the conspiracy theories. “Very soon you will hear wives batting and bowling. The way this team play, no individual is bigger than the game. Not me, not him, nobody in the team. I have been a part of that dressing room and none of the nonsense is there,” the former all-rounder pooh-poohed the rumours.
For Kohli, the Indian team couldn’t have performed consistently across formats if there was no camaraderie amongst the players.
“I have also heard a lot of things. Now you can only hear things from outside. If the dressing room environment had been bad, then we couldn’t have possibly played the quality of cricket that we played,” asserted the Indian captain.
“Because I know how the dressing room environment and trust factor becomes important to succeed in international cricket. The journey that we have had in ODIs, in Tests (from No. 7 to No.1) and T20s, that wouldn’t have been possible without camaraderie, respect and understanding.
“You people please come to our change room and see, how we speak to a Kuldeep Yadav, how we crack a joke with the senior-most player MS Dhoni. We can’t shoot a video and show you guys. It baffles you as a leader, when lies are being floated around to make it look like actually they are believable,” Kohli sounded irritated.
Kohli emphatically denied that there could be any awkwardness between him and Rohit due to the events in the past few days. “If I don’t like a person or if I am insecure about a person, you will see it on my face or my behaviour towards the person and that’s how simple it is,” Kohli pointed out.
“I have always praised Rohit whenever I have got an opportunity because I believe he is that good. I don’t know who is benefitting from all of this but we are living, breathing towards getting Indian cricket to the top, and here we get some kind of pleasure in bringing Indian cricket down,” the skipper said.
Kohli also said it will be a ‘very exciting opportunity’ for the likes of Chahar brothers (Deepak and Rahul) and Navdeep Saini to make a mark in the limited overs format during the upcoming tour of the West Indies.
“The T20s as you have seen, the squads, when I met the selectors the basic message from them was to try out a few players that they had in mind. I think it is a very exciting opportunity for all the guys who are stepping in for the first time,” Kohli said.
Deepak and Rahul, Saini, Shreyas Iyer, Manish Pandey and Washington Sundar are a mixture of new and old faces to have been included in the squad for the limited-overs format.
“The ODI side is more or less balanced and we have been really doing well, the Test side, needless to say the kind of performances we have put in, so I am particularly excited about the three T20s, because as I said new lot of players coming in,” Kohli stated.
India will play three T20s and as many ODIs, and two Test matches during their West Indies tour, commencing August 3.
