With a lot of speculations going around at the moment regarding the captaincy transition between Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma and the possibility of it causing a potential rift in the dressing room and among the players, one would want to recall a similar sort of captaincy transition between Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly, which happened in Indian cricket way back in 2005.
The very popular Indian captain Sourav Ganguly was not just sacked from the captaincy, he was dropped from the ODI squad as well, and it was his deputy Rahul Dravid who was given the charge of the team in both red-ball and white-ball cricket.
India were in a tricky position against South Africa at Eden Gardens when Dravid walked out to bat at no. 5 in seaming conditions. The Kolkata crowd booed Dravid on his arrival at the crease, as they thought he was the man responsible for their beloved prince of Kolkata being dropped from the team. While the actual reason behind Ganguly’s exclusion from the squad was his batting form and nothing else.
Because of the fact that Dravid couldn’t score big in that Kolkata ODI and was cleaned up at the score of 6 by the South African fast bowler Charl Langeveldt, it resulted in another round of booing as the Indian captain returned to the pavilion.
Dravid got jeered loudly in Kolkata but in the very next game the Mumbai crowd showed full support to the Indian team & they chanted for Dravid as well who made 78* as India won the final game to draw the series. pic.twitter.com/e4vkAoFtDk
— Mainak Sinha🏏📽️ (@cric_archivist) December 13, 2021
The transition between Rohit Sharma and Kohli seems to be similar to the one between Rahul Dravid and Ganguly
Indian cricket has not come across scenes like that again in the last decade and a half because the transition between MS Dhoni, who captained India for a long time, and Virat Kohli, who succeeded Dhoni, was very smooth. However, the transition between Kohli and the new Indian captain, Rohit Sharma hasn’t been smooth at all.
Fans of Virat Kohli are extremely upset about the fact that Kohli was removed as an ODI captain on very short notice, and the manner in which the removal was announced by the BCCI was disrespectful as well. It remains to be seen when Kohli and Rohit are back playing together.
