Virat Kohli posts ‘SQUAD’ photo without Rohit Sharma

Ever since India exited the World Cup, the rumours of a rift between Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma have started doing the rounds. Quite a number of reports suggested that there were differences between the two players about split captaincy. The reports in the media suggested that the Indian dressing room has been divided into two halves. While one half is in support of Virat Kohli, the other is backing Rohit Sharma.

As of now, there are only speculations over the rumours. Virat Kohli did try to rubbish the reports but Rohit’s behaviour has remained tightlipped throughout. And as if all those rumours were not enough, Kohli has only raised the suspicion with his latest tweet.

Kohli took to Twitter to share a picture of himself with members of the Indian team and captioned it as “SQUAD”. In the picture, he can be seen posing with Ravindra Jadeja, Navdeep Saini, Khaleel Ahmed, Shreyas Iyer, Krunal Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and KL Rahul. However, Rohit, who is also a part of the Indian squad was nowhere in the picture.

Interestingly, Rishabh Pant also posted a tweet where he was posing with Rohit and some of his other teammates but Kohli was not there.

The turn of events are bound to act as fuel to the fire as reports of the rift are only growing stronger and stronger with each passing day.

Kohli’s take on the alleged rift

Virat Kohli, nonetheless, has blasted the rumours, calling them “absolutely ridiculous” and “disrespectful”. Before departing for the West Indies tour, the India skipper said that he was baffled by the reports.

“In my opinion, it’s baffling, to be honest. It’s absolutely ridiculous to read such stuff that comes out there,” Kohli said. “I mean I’ve been to a few public events and the public sentiment that I’ve seen — everyone comes up and says, ‘yaar, aap log kya khele (you guys played so well). We have so much respect for you’. And here we are feeding off lies, we are overlooking facts, we are turning a blind eye to all the good things that have happened and creating fantasies and scenarios in our head and we want to accept that this is the truth,” said Kohli.

India’s tour of West Indies is starting today with the first T20I. India will play three T20Is, three ODIs and two Tests against the Caribbean outfit.