Is Indian Cricket Paying The Price For Virat Kohli's Unceremonious Sacking?

Considering the way the tour panned out, one is bound to wonder if what transpired before the tour impacted the players negatively...

- Renin Wilben

India’s tour of South Africa ended disastrously as they went down in the final ODI by four runs and ended up being blanked 0-3. The visitors needed 10 runs with three overs in hand but failed to get over the line. The performance was symptomatic of India’s woes throughout the tour. They got into a position to push for victory in almost every game on tour but could not complete the task apart from the Centurion Test. Considering the way the tour panned out, one is bound to wonder if what transpired before the tour impacted the players negatively.

Virat Kohli was sacked as one-day captain rather unceremoniously ahead of the South African tour. The move wasn’t wrong as there is no point in having two different captains for the white-ball formats. The manner in which it was done, though, was questionable as it was just a line mentioned that Rohit Sharma had been named as ODI captain when the team for the Test series for South Africa was released. It was a shockingly wretched way to announce such a big decision. And then all hell broke loose at the pre-departure press conference before the South Africa series.