Virat Kohli likely to skip ODI series against South Africa owing to personal reasons: Reports
India (Photo by Mark Kolbe/Getty Images)
India’s Test captain Virat Kohli is likely to skip the three-match ODI series against South Africa due to personal reasons. The 33-year-old is set to go on on a small vacation in January to celebrate his daughter’s first birthday, which falls on January 11. According to reports in the Times of India, Kohli had also conveyed the same to BCCI.
The news is a big blow to India who could possibly be without their limited-overs skipper Rohit Sharma as well, who was ruled out of the Test series due to injury. It is learned that the injury is concerning and will take some time to heal, pitting Rohit’s participation in ODI series in doubt
India will start the South Africa tour with a three-match Test series starting from December 26, followed by a three-match ODI series. Meanwhile, Kohli’s unavailability has given rise to the speculations that Kohli is not happy after being stripped off the ODI captaincy. Reports were circulating that Kohli wanted to continue leading the ODI team. However, BCCI President Sourav Ganguly confirmed that having two different skippers in the limited-overs formats was not right.
Ganguly also said he requested Kohli to not give up T20I captaincy but the former skipper didn’t agree. “It’s like I said… I personally requested him (Kohli) not to give up the T20I captaincy. Obviously, he felt the workload. Which is fine, he has been a great cricketer, he has been very intense with his cricket. He has captained for a long period of time and these things happen. Because I have captained for a long period of time; therefore, I know. Also, they wanted only one white-ball captain. And that’s why this decision. I don’t know what’s going to happen in the future. But as I said, it’s a good team and it has some fantastic players and I hope they will turn it around,” Ganguly said according to News 18.
