Virat Kohli likely to skip the ODI series against South Africa

Mumbai, December 14: Virat Kohli may skip India's ODI series against South Africa in January and he has cited personal for the decision. In fact, the birthday of his daughter Vamika falls in January.

Rohit Sharma has replaced Kohli as ODI skipper of India from the away series against South Africa. Kohli had also stepped down from the T20I captaincy post the ICC T20 World Cup 2021.

Sources in the know of developments said Kohli has indeed asked the board for a small break in January next year. "Yes, Kohli has asked for a small break in January to spend some time with his family. It effectively means that he would miss the ODI series against South Africa," the source told ANI.

Meanwhile, the BCCI had also announced that Rohit will miss the Test series against South Africa because of a hamstring injury. Priyank Panchal, the 31-year-old Gujarat opener, has replaced Rohit in the India Test squad.

The national selectors are yet to announce the India ODI squad for the South Africa series. The withdrawl news of Kohli from the ODI series are sure to give room for talks about the atmosphere of India dressing room.

It has been rumoured that both Kohli and Rohit are not on friendly terms for sometime now and there was speculations about them unfollowing each other on social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram.

“Over the years, the Indian dressing room has been fraught with egos. Be it Kapil Dev and Sunil Gavaskar, Mohammed Azharuddin and Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid, MS Dhoni and Virender Sehwag or Gautam Gambhir.

"But that doesn’t mean that it has boiled over to what they go and do out there on the field. They’re professionals and are required to behave in a certain fashion at all times," a BCCI official told the ToI.

India will start the tour of South Africa with the Test series starting on December 26 at Johannesburg. It will be a big blow for India that they will not have services of two best batsmen for the entire length of the tour.

It may be recalled that India have never won a series against South Africa away from home and they are trying to change that script this time under Kohli and Dravid.

The BCCI President Sourav Ganguly also spoke about how he spoke to Kohli and he also revealed how he had asked Kohli to not step down as the T20I skipper.

"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," Ganguly told ANI.

"So it was decided that Virat will continue as Test captain and Rohit will take over as the white-ball captain. I as President personally spoke to Virat Kohli and the chairman of selectors has also spoken to him.

"We have full faith in Rohit Sharma's leadership abilities, and Virat will continue as the Test captain. We as BCCI are confident that Indian cricket is in good hands. We thank Virat Kohli for his contributions as captain in the white-ball format," the BCCI president added.