Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and ODI captaincy: If no one else, Indian cricket fans deserve to know why

On the evening of 16 September, Virat Kohli posted a message on social media that he will be stepping down from India captaincy in the T20I format. A little while later (an hour and a half approximately), the Board of Control for Cricket in India issued a statement of their own. It had a quote from the board president and former captain Sourav Ganguly, followed by another from the secretary Jay Shah. It also had Kohli’s statement from Twitter added to the end.

Right, that seemed fair. The Indian captain spoke about his workload needing to be managed. “Understanding workload is a very important thing and considering my immense workload over the last 8-9 years playing all 3 formats and captaining regularly for last 5-6 years, I feel I need to give myself space to be fully ready to lead the Indian Team in Test and ODI Cricket,” he had said. (Emphasis on the last line there).

And Ganguly and Shah had nothing but nice things to say in their press release. “I have been in discussions with Virat and the leadership team for the last six months and the decision has been thought through,” Shah’s statement said. “He is one of the most successful captains in…

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