'There was no communication...' - Virat Kohli opens up on losing ODI captaincy to Rohit Sharma

On December 8, the BCCI dropped a bomb by removing Virat Kohli as the ODI captain. Many believe it was always on the cards after the 33-year-old had stepped down as the T20I captain, post the World Cup in the UAE, and the Indian cricket board made the official announcement as Kohli got replaced by Rohit Sharma. For the unversed, Rohit had already succeeded Kohli as the T20I captain and, thus, will serve as the limited-overs skipper.

Ahead of Team India's departure for South Africa, where they are scheduled to play three Tests and equal number of ODIs, Kohli interacted with the media in the customary press conference in Mumbai, on Wednesday (December 15), and opened up on losing ODI captaincy to Rohit.

He told, "I was communicated one and a half hours before the selection meeting (on Rohit being given the ODI captaincy). I was told that I will not be the ODI captain. There was no communication with me before that. We chatted briefly about it during the selection meet, but no communication about this was made before the selection meeting."

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Earlier, BCCI President Sourav Ganguly had also broken his silence on the ODI captaincy change and told ANI, "“It's a call that the BCCI and the selectors took together,” Ganguly told ANI. "Actually, 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," he stated.

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Kohli also made it clear that he had never asked for skipping the SA ODIs, to start from January 19 in Paarl. He has maintained that he remains available for the 50-over series in the African nation and the team is eyeing success across formats in their tough tour of the African nation.