Former India cricketer Atul Wassan slammed India’s white-ball skipper Rohit Sharma on Tuesday for the timing of his statement on Virat Kohli during the pre-series news conference in Kolkata for the T20I match against West Indies. Wassan thought that Rohit’s “keep it quiet” statement to a journalist about Kohli’s declining batting results should have come sooner, given the rumors of a breach between the two Indian cricketing stalwarts. Wassan told ANI that the rumors were “unfounded,” but that Rohit should have handled the problem much sooner.
“I think this should have happened sooner because there have been rumors in the Indian dressing room and camp that there is a rift between Rohit and Virat, which is unfounded, and I think every player has some issues, but that doesn’t mean they try to perform and under-perform when someone else is the captain.” I believe this was done in the past when Bishan Singh Bedi faced Sunil Gavaskar and Kapil Dev faced Sunil Gavaskar. “These people are now pros,” he remarked.
Kohli has not scored a three-figure run in international cricket since November 2019, and in the previous ODI series against West Indies, the former India skipper set a decade low with 26 runs in three innings, his second-lowest in a bilateral ODI series of at least three games. Wassan also urged Kohli to recover from his adversity in the same way as Kapil Dev recovered from his vision problems and Sachin Tendulkar recovered from his tennis elbow injuries.
