Turbulence, a timeline
India had begun 2021 with a euphoric series victory over Australia, but just a year later, Indian cricket is left confronting a phase of big transition. Virat Kohli is now no longer captain in any format while coach Rahul Dravid has only recently taken charge from Ravi Shastri. Here's the sequence of events that led to this.
JUNE, 2021
23: Virat Kohli faces criticism after India's loss to New Zealand in the World Test Championship final as his search for ICC silverware as captain continues.
SEPTEMBER
16: Kohli announces that he will step down as captain of the India T20 side after the T20 World Cup in November. He says in his statement that he would like to continue leading the Test and ODI teams. 19: Three days later, he decides to step down as captain of IPL franchise Royal Challengers Bangalore too.
NOVEMBER
03: With Ravi Shastri announcing that he won't continue as coach after the T20 World Cup, the BCCI names Rahul Dravid as the new head coach. Shastri was a strong ally for Kohli right through the latter's captaincy tenure. 08: Kohli's last assignment as India T20 captain ends on a disastrous note as India fail to make the semi-finals of the T20 World Cup. The search for an ICC trophy remains elusive and Kohli's ODI captaincy is considered to be under threat.
DECEMBER
08: In just a line at the end of a press release announcing the Test squad for South Africa, the BCCI names Rohit Sharma as the new ODI and T20I skipper, without even referring to the removal of Kohli as ODI captain. 09: BCCI president Sourav Ganguly says he had asked Kohli to continue as T20I captain and that the change in ODI captaincy was inevitable once Kohli left the captaincy of the shortest format. 15: Before the SA series, Kohli addresses a press conference where he disputes Ganguly's version of events, saying nobody had asked him to reconsider his decision. He adds that the decision to remove him from ODI captaincy was communicated 90 minutes before a selection meeting to pick the Test squad for SA. 31: Chief selector Chetan Sharma adds fuel to the controversy by backing Ganguly's statement and insisting that everybody had asked Kohli to reconsider stepping down from the T20I captaincy.
JANUARY, 2022
14: India's quest to conquer the final frontier in SA ends in heartbreak with a 1-2 series loss. It is Kohli's second successive series defeat in SA as captain.