“He was talking then about stepping away from white-ball cricket”: Ricky Ponting reveals Virat Kohli talked about leaving white-ball captaincy during IPL 2021

Ricky Ponting has revealed that Virat Kohli had a talk with him regarding leaving the white-ball captaincy during IPL 2021.

The news of Virat Kohli’s resignation as the Indian test captain is still a shock to many. When Virat stepped out of T20I captaincy, he said that he want to focus on ODIs and Tests. However, then started the controversy between BCCI and Virat Kohli, and he was sacked as the ODI captain.

Although, in the test format, Virat had his own aura and he was irreplaceable. In the series against South Africa, India won the first game of the series, but they lost their next two games. South Africa was India’s final frontier, but they could not breach it. On 14th January India lost the series, and on 15th January, Virat resigned as the test captain. There have been a lot of suggestions by the former players for the next Indian test captain.

In an interview with ICC, legendary Australian captain Ricky Ponting has said that Virat can be proud of his achievements. He said that India started winning overseas tests after Virat’s arrival.

“If you think about India before Virat, it was about winning a lot of games at home and not winning quite as many overseas. The thing that improved the most was India winning a few more games overseas, and that’s something that he and all of the Indian cricket have to be really proud of,” Ponting told ICC.

“Given his Test record as captain, he can walk away from the role very, very proud of what he has achieved.”

Ricky Ponting reveals interaction with Virat during IPL 2021

Ricky Ponting has said that he was shocked when Virat left the test captaincy of India. He revealed that he had a conversation with Virat during IPL 2021 first leg, where Virat told him about leaving white-ball captaincy.

“Yes, it did actually (surprise me). Probably the main reason why was I had a chat and good catch-up with Virat during the first part of the IPL (2021) before it got postponed,” Ponting added.

“He was talking then about stepping away (from captaincy) from white-ball cricket and how passionate he was to continue on to be Test match captain. He just loved and cherished that job and that post so much. Obviously, the Indian Test team had achieved a lot under his leadership. When I heard it, I was really, really surprised.”

Ricky Ponting said that Virat was one of the most passionate players to play the test format. Although, Ponting added that he can understand Virat’s decision of stepping down.

“You only have to watch him on the field for an hour of the day’s play to realize how passionate he is about that job and the role,” Ponting said.

“I was shocked, but then I started thinking about other things, even my own time as captain. I have gone on record and said that I probably think I played a couple of years longer than I should have in hindsight.”