Virat Kohli stepped down as India’s Test captain on Saturday. Kohli issued a statement on social media to make the announcement. The decision comes a day after India’s 1-2 loss in the three-match Test series against South Africa.
“It’s been 7 years of hard work, toil and relentless perseverance every day to take the team in the right direction. I’ve done the job with absolute honesty and left nothing out there. Everything has to come to a halt at some stage and for me as Test Captain of India, it’s now,” Kohli’s statement read. Kohli’s tenure ends with 40 victories in 68 matches, which makes him the most successful Indian Test captain ever.
Kohli thanked the BCCI and his teammates for supporting him throughout his journey as Indian captain.
“I want to thank BCCI for giving me the opportunity to lead my country for such a long period of time and more importantly to all the teammates who bought into the vision for the team from day one and never gave up in any situation,” he said.
Notably, Kohli was replaced as India’s full-time white-ball captain by Rohit Sharma last month. He had stepped down from T20I captaincy at the end of India’s ICC T20 World Cup campaign in November. Kohli was then removed as captain in ODIs by the selectors ahead of the start of the tour to South Africa.
Talking earlier at the post-match press conference on Friday, India captain Virat Kohli defended his team’s verbal attack on the broadcasters after Dean Elgar’s contentious DRS reprieve, saying that people on the outside don’t understand the trigger for such an outburst.
“That one moment seems very nice and very exciting to make a controversy out of, which honestly, I am not interested in making…It was just (a) moment that passed and we moved on from it. And we just kept focussing on the game and tried to pick up wickets,” Kohli asserted.
