Virat Ganguly Handshake Controversy: Why Did Virat Kohli and Sourav Ganguly Not Shake Hands in IPL 2023?

Former captains Virat Kohli and Sourav Ganguly are two of the greatest captains in the history of Indian cricket. However, both of them don’t appear to be on the best of terms right now with a recent incident hinting it in the public space.

It was on Saturday that Royal Challengers Bangalore had hosted Delhi Capitals at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium. While Kohli is a vital cog in the wheel at RCB, Ganguly is the director of cricket at DC. A lot of videos have emerged on social media where fans are speculating about a rift between the two of them.

In one of the clips, Kohli was seen staring at Ganguly who was sitting in the dugout. However, the video where both of them ignored each other after the match is grabbing a lot of headlines. According to reports, Kohli has even unfollowed Ganguly on social media platform Instagram.

Virat Ganguly Handshake Controversy

Bangalore defeated Delhi by 23 runs, and after the match, the players and coaches were normally greeting each other. However, Ganguly was seen jumping the queue when Delhi’s head coach Ricky Ponting was talking with Kohli. Ganguly then went ahead to shake hands with other players.

The relationship between both of them was tarnished after Kohli stepped down as the captain of India’s T20I team in 2021. Ganguly had said to the press that the BCCI requested Kohli to continue leading the Indian side in the T20Is. However, Kohli denied the request, and that’s why selectors removed him from ODI captaincy as well.

“It’s a call that the BCCI and the selectors took together. 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,” Sourav Ganguly had said to ANI back then.

Ahead of the South Africa tour in 2021, Kohli addressed a press conference where he said that no one from the BCCI approached him about the same. He revealed that there was no prior communication made to him about the captaincy decision. Even, former selector Chetan Sharma alleged that Kohli was lying.

“There was no prior communication with me at all since I announced the T20 captaincy decision until the 8th of December. I was told that the selectors had decided that I won’t be ODI captain to which I replied, ‘Okay, fine’. There was no prior communication. That is what happened,” Virat Kohli said to reporters.

Virat Kohli vs Sourav Ganguly captaincy record

Ganguly led India in a total of 196 international matches, where he won 97 and lost 79. India’s win percentage under Ganguly was 49.48%. Talking about Kohli, he led India in 213 games, and the team managed to win 135 of them. The win percentage under Kohli was 63.38%.

In terms of stats, Kohli is way ahead of Ganguly. Although, Ganguly is still counted as one of the bests to lead the team during his time.

Under Ganguly’s leadership, India reached the final of ICC World Cup 2003, whereas they were the joint winners of ICC Champions Trophy 2002. India also retained the Border-Gavaskar trophy 2003/04 in away conditions.

Talking about Kohli’s achievements as captain, Team India defeated Australia at their home soil in a Test series for the very first time in 2018/19. They also reached the final of World Test Championship in 2021. Kohli’s captaincy in ICC tournaments was not great, but once he said that he prefers cultural change in team over winning ICC trophies.