Former Pakistan captain Salman Butt on Thursday backed BCCI President Sourav Ganguly’s “did not feel it right to have two different captains for two white-ball formats” statement on Virat Kohli while talking about the ODI captaincy switch. Butt admitted that he found no angle of disrespect from Ganguly and found the decision rather logical.
“Even I had mentioned this before. It doesn’t make sense to have one T20I captain and one ODI captain. And it is not about the decision of making Rohit Sharma the captain being right or wrong. He is equally capable and has performed well as a captain. If this has happened with the understanding that the decision has happened with the idea of taking pressure off a person to value his batting,” Butt said speaking on his YouTube channel.
The Board on Wednesday named Rohit Sharma as the new ODI captain, replacing Kohli, with this tenure to begin from the impending white-ball series against South Africa in January. Talking about the call, Ganguly on Thursday said that the Board and selectors made the decision together and that he and the chairman of selectors even had a word with Kohli regarding the same.
“The BCCI had requested Virat to not step down as the T20I skipper but obviously, he did not agree. And the selectors then did not feel it right to have two different captains for two white-ball formats. So it was decided that Virat will continue as Test captain and Rohit will take over as the white-ball captain. I as President personally spoke to Virat Kohli and the chairman of selectors has also spoken to him,” Ganguly told ANI.
Kohli led India in 95 ODI games and won 65 of them and failed to led the team to an ICC title win – India lost to Pakistan in the 2017 Champions Trophy final, were defeated by New Zealand in the 2019 ODI World Cup semi-final and suffered a group-stage exit in 2021 T20 World Cup.
