Indian Test captain Virat Kohli recently made explosive remarks during a press conference where he contradicted BCCI president Sourav Ganguly’s earlier statement that the board had requested Kohli to not step down as the T20I captain.

During his pre-departure press conference ahead of India’s tour of South Africa, Kohli had mentioned that he was not asked to remain the captain of the T20I format by the BCCI as Ganguly had earlier claimed. “No statements, no press conference. We will deal with it, leave it to (the) BCCI,” Ganguly reportedly informed the media on Thursday regarding Kohli’s comments.

Kohli had stated during the press conference, “Whatever was said about the communication that happened about the decision that was made was inaccurate. When I left the T20 captaincy, I had first approached BCCI and intimated them of my decision and laid down my point of view in front of them (office bearers). I gave the reasons why I wanted to quit T20 captaincy and my view point was received very nicely. There was no offence, no hesitation and not for once was I told that ‘you should not leave T20 captaincy’.”

Ganguly had claimed that he had spoken to Kohli about how it would not be ideal to have two different captains in the white-ball format and that that was the reason behind appointing Rohit Sharma as the new captain of the T20I as well as the ODI formats. Kohli also stated at the press conference that his removal from ODI captaincy happened 90 minutes before the team’s selection for the South Africa tour.