Former Indian cricketer Karsan Ghavri feels that both Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma were forced into Test retirement owing to internal politics of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).
“That’s a mystery. He should have continued playing for India for at least a couple of years. Something you know really forced him (Kohli) to retire. Internal politics in the BCCI which is hard to understand. Even Rohit retired prematurely. They were asked to go out,” Ghavri told journalist Vickey Lalwani during the course of a podcast.
Both the former captains dropped bombshells when they hung up their boots from the longest format of the game ahead of the 5-match Test series against England, which was levelled 2-2.
“It is not that they wanted to leave; they wanted to continue, but the BCCI had different ideas, the selectors had different ideas. It’s a matter of petty politics,” he said when asked whether Kohli was deprived of captaincy for the England series.
The former all-rounder also waded into the Kohli-BCCI row, stating that he deserved a farewell Test, keeping in mind his contributions to Indian cricket.
“Unfortunately, Virat was not even granted a farewell by the BCCI. He deserves a fabulous farewell,” he said.
Ghavri also rued changing the name of the Pataudi trophy to Anderson-Tendulkar trophy, marking the India-England Test series.
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“That was uncalled for. Imagine changing the nomenclature of the Border-Gavaskar trophy, Sunil (Gavaskar) would shake the entire country. The BCCI should have put its foot down, so should have Sachin (Tendulkar),” he added.
“Sachin should have said no in the first place,” Ghavri said.
