'I think this could’ve been sorted behind closed doors' - Gautam Gambhir on Virat Kohli and Sourav Ganguly's 'internal battle'

Former Indian batter Gautam Gambhir is not shy of revealing his opinions and he opened up on one of the most controversial topics in the last two months – the alleged rift between former Indian skipper Virat Kohli and BCCI president Sourav Ganguly. Kohli had announced that he will step down from the T20I captaincy for India after the T20 World Cup 2021 but it had a different climax as the selectors removed him from ODI captaincy as well with Rohit Sharma being named as white-ball skipper for India in both formats.

Kohli had revealed that he wasn’t informed earlier about his sacking from ODI captaincy while Ganguly had different views on it which turned out to be an altercation. With all the heat around the topic, India lost the Test series to South Africa 1-2 and Kohli stepped down from the longer format captaincy as well which came as a big surprise for everyone.

It was a great TRP for a lot of new channels –  Gautam Gambhir

Gambhir noted that the Kohli-Ganguly rift was one of those issues which should have been dealt with internally and doesn’t find it big enough in terms of depth. He added that he doesn’t see any controversy in the matter despite the build-up it has had over the last two months and expects it to have an easy solution as well.

“I think this could’ve been sorted behind closed doors as well. It was an internal battle. It was a great TRP for a lot of new channels but that’s fine. If you go to the depth of it, the matter can easily be solved. It’s not that big of an issue,” said Gambhir while speaking on Times Now

Gambhir heaped praises on Kohli’s captaincy in a red-ball format especially and he opined that Kohli should not have stepped down from the role in the longer format. India is yet to name a Test skipper while Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul remain the top contenders for it.

“Honestly, I don’t see any controversy which was created. Talking about captaincy, I think Virat should have continued as red-ball captain. But for white-ball captaincy, once he decided to let go of T20I captaincy, he had to let go of ODI captaincy as well. The BCCI and the selectors were right from the white-ball point of view. But it was Virat’s personal decision to step down from Test captaincy, which he should have continued,” he added.