The complete story behind the rift between Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli explained

(Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma during the 2021 T20 World Cup)

Over the years, Indian Cricket has seen some of the best cricket players that have graced the jersey during their careers. Be it Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman, Kapil Dev, MS Dhoni and many more, every player has made sure that the team comes first. This also has been the story of the two current generation superstars, Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma who have been the stalwarts of Indian Cricket since they started playing in 2008. Both of them have been carrying India’s batting lineup for a long time and have registered their names in many records out there. However, not everything has been a fairytale between both the players as there have been times when both the players were not on the best terms with each other.

Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli coming to the Indian team

After the 2007 ODI World Cup loss, it was the time for the young generation to take over Indian cricket and the one name that came out at the top was Rohit Sharma who made his place secured in the 2007 T20 World Cup and helped the team to win the trophy by a superb cameo with the bat in the Finals. Coming to his career, he has been a beast opener for the Indian team because he has got 18820 runs from the 498 matches played by him and in the ODI Format, he has scored 3 double-centuries along with having 7 hundreds in the ODI World Cups which is the most by any player. Currently, he is the captain of the Indian team and has done a brilliant job for the team till now.

(Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma during the 2019 ODI World Cup)

Virat Kohli made his debut for the Indian team in 2008 and since then, he has been the best batter of this generation. He was part of the Indian team that won the 2011 ODI World Cup and the 2013 Champions Trophy and even contributed to the Finals of both tournaments well. With 2 Player of the Tournament in the T20 World Cups and a Player of the Tournament in the 2023 ODI World Cup, Virat Kohli has always been the player on whom the Indian team can rely. Even for his 20000 runs in the last 10 years, he was awarded the Player of the Decade and has been hailed as King Kohli.

Virat dropping Rohit Sharma from the Test Team

With the retirement of MS Dhoni from the test format, it was Virat Kohli who was given the Test Captaincy and had got the job of making the test team a great one. From 2015 to 2021, Virat Kohli managed to build a team that was far superior in the test format and even made an impact felt in the overseas tours when they won in Australia, England, South Africa and other countries. However, while building the Test side, he gave the opportunity to Rohit Sharma in the middle order where he was averaging a mere 26 in the year 2018 and hence was dropped from the side.

During the England tour in 2018, Rohit Sharma was sidelined from the Test Squad because of his poor performance and hence it was a major setback for him in his career. He even posted a picture on his Instagram with the caption “Would have preferred to be in the Lords balcony with a view of the ground but I’ll settle for this for now.”. Besides this, the main controversial moment that arrived when Rohit Sharma liked a troll post against KL Rahul where the stats showed that he is an overrated batter and instead of him, Rohit Sharma should be given a chance here.

(Rohit Sharma liked a post against KL Rahul on Instagram)

This sparked a big debate among all the Cricket Experts and even the fans were stunned to see how Rohit Sharma can do this. On the England tour, India lost the series by 4-1 in the Test Format along with losing the ODI series by 2-1 too. In the T20 format, India got the series win and it was Rohit Sharma who was the top run-scorer for the team here. However, the talking point for everyone was the way Rohit Sharma showed his disappointment and anger towards the team’s selection of Virat Kohli for the test format.

But this all didn’t end here as in the 2018 England tour, there was another instance where Rohit Sharma again came into the criticism. The tweet, which criticized the presence of actress Anushka Sharma alongside Indian cricket captain Virat Kohli during an official team visit, garnered attention when Rohit Sharma showed his approval by liking it. The controversy arose when the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) shared a photo of the Indian cricket team's visit to the High Commission in London.

(Rohit Sharma’s X Handle where he liked a tweet against Virat Kohli’s wife)

Anushka Sharma was pictured alongside the team, sparking criticism and trolling on social media platforms. Interestingly, Rohit Sharma, who was not part of the Test squad at the time, also seemed to express his disapproval through another Twitter interaction. While the exact comment he liked remains undisclosed, his actions suggest a dissatisfaction with certain aspects of the cricketing environment. The incident has ignited discussions about the perceived preferential treatment of certain players and their associates, raising questions about fairness and professionalism in the sport.

Rift after the 2019 ODI World Cup

In the year 2019, the Indian team was playing the 2019 ODI World Cup and it was the tournament that was going perfect for the team. Rohit Sharma was the star of the tournament with 5 centuries to his name in the League Stages while Virat Kohli also did well as a captain. In the points table, India ended up at the top position and with the players like MS Dhoni, Jasprit Bumrah, Hardik Pandya, Kuldeep Yadav and many more, the team looked all set for their 3rd ODI World Cup after winning it in the 1983 and then in 2011 under the captaincy of MS Dhoni.

(Indian team and fans dejected after losing the 2019 ODI World Cup Semi-Finals against New Zealand)

However, everything went haywire after India lost the Semi-Finals of the ODI World Cup 2019 against New Zealand at Manchester. In the match, the top 3 of the Indian batting lineup, Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul were dismissed for just 1 run each while at the end, it was MS Dhoni who made 52 runs but a throw from Martin Guptill ended his innings and India’s hopes of the ODI World Cup. All the fans and Indian players were dejected and it was the start of the rift between Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli.

In the news reports, it was said that Rohit Sharma wasn’t happy with the decisions taken by Virat Kohli during the Semi-Finals match as Rishabh Pant and Hardik Pandya batted above MS Dhoni even when the team was in trouble while Mohammed Shami was also dropped from the Playing XI for the match. The reports further claimed that Rohit Sharma was disappointed with Virat Kohli and Ravi Shastri for making such a decision during such a crucial match.

After this, when the Indian team was leaving for the tour of the West Indies, Virat Kohli and Ravi Shastri attended a press conference where the reporters asked about the rift between Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma. To this, Ravi Shastri replied that:

“The way the team plays, no individual is bigger than the team. The way they play is in the interest of the game. You cannot have that consistency if there is a rift or whatever.”

Even Virat Kohli supported what Ravi Shastri said and denied the rumours of the rift between him and the vice-captain of the Indian team, Rohit Sharma. He said:

“In my opinion, it's baffling to be honest. It's absolutely ridiculous to read such stuff that comes out. I have been to a few public events and the public sentiment is 'aap log kya khele (you guys played so well)'. Bringing personal lives into the picture. It's disrespectful after a moment. We've had no issues. If I don't like somebody, it shows on my face. I have also heard a lot in past few days but if team atmosphere isn't good, we couldn't have played well.”

https://x.com/ImRo45/status/1156580110784483329

But just after leaving for the tour of the West Indies, there was a cryptic post from Rohit Sharma where he posted his picture on his social media handles stating that“I don’t just walk out for my Team. I walk out for my country.” which was a contradictory response from the Indian opener. To this, the fans were confused and it looked like the environment of the Indian team’s dressing room wasn’t great

Despite all this, both the superstars, Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma continued to play cricket together for the Indian team. But during the Covid-19 lockdown, Rohit Sharma unfollowed Virat Kohli’s wife Anushka Sharma on Instagram and it sparked a debate again. To this, Anushka Sharma posted a cryptic story on his Instagram handle.

(Anushka Sharma’s story after Rohit Sharma unfollowed him on Instagram)

During this, there were several times when Rohit Sharma targeted Virat Kohli indirectly through his social media handles. On Instagram, he did “Ask me a Question” where a fan asked him about Virat Kohli. However, the user made a spelling mistake in the name of Kohli and to this, he replied with“Check the spelling” rather than answering it. Even during the press conference of the 2019 ODI World Cup, a reporter asked Rohit Sharma about the best batter of all three formats by referring to Virat Kohli. To this, Rohit Sharma didn’t answer the question straightforwardly and hence it was a moment for confusion for the fans to understand what was going on between both the Indian team players.

Virat Kohli stepping down from captaincy in 2021

With Virat Kohli captaining 4 ICC Tournaments (2017 Champions Trophy, 2019 ODI World Cup, 2021 World Test Championship and 2021 T20 World Cup) and winning none of them, it was time for BCCI to look for some new options. Virat himself left the captaincy in the T20 format and it was Rohit Sharma who took over the captaincy and started preparing for the upcoming 2022 T20 World Cup. However, in between, the reports emerged that Rohit wasn’t keen on getting just the T20 captaincy and was also looking to get the ODI Captaincy as well.

(Virat Kohli’s Instagram post after leaving India’s Test Captaincy)

In between all this, Virat Kohli lost his form and was constantly under pressure to perform at his best which even made the matter worse when there was a news of Rift between Virat Kohli and the former BCCI President Sourav Ganguly. In the press conference, Kohli said that he wasn’t given any chance by the BCCI to review his decision to leave the T20 Captaincy and hence before the South African tour in 2022, Virat Kohli was sacked from the ODI Captaincy and was also given to Rohit Sharma.

Furthermore, in 2017, it was the former Indian captain MS Dhoni who said in a press conference that split captaincy doesn’t work in India and hence there should be only one captain in the Indian team for all three formats. When he stepped down from the white ball captaincy, he said that India just needs one leader who can lead them well and hence the same was taken into consideration here.

“Split captaincy doesn’t work in India. It was the right time for me to move on. The Indian team under Virat Kohli will be the most successful team ever.”

(Sourav Ganguly and Virat Kohli in a frame)

After the 2022 South Africa Test tour, Virat Kohli even left the Test Captaincy and it was given to Rohit Sharma at the same time. For the fans, it was shocking because Virat Kohli was India’s most successful Test Captain and him leading the team with aggression was always an amazing scene to watch for the fans. Furthermore, while leaving the T20 captaincy, Virat Kohli himself explained that he was looking to lead the Indian team in the 2023 WTC Finals and the 2023 ODI World Cup but the politics from BCCI completely ruined it.

How Ravi Shastri handled the Rohit Sharma vs Virat Kohli’s Rift

India’s former fielding coach, R Sridhar is the person who worked closely with Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma during the 2019 ODI World Cup along with Ravi Shastri being the coach of the Indian team. He admitted in his book that there was some rift between both the batters and hence it wasn’t good for the team out there. Talking about Ravi Shastri, Sridhar said that he handled the situation smartly and managed to make sure that both of them maintain a good relationship now. He said:

“After the 2019 World Cup, there was a lot of bad press about what allegedly happened in the dressing room during our campaign and following our loss to New Zealand in the semifinal. We were informed that there was a Rohit camp and a Virat camp, that someone had unfollowed another on social media – stuff that could be unsettling if you allowed it to fester.”

(Indian team during the 2019 ODI World Cup)

With the formation of groups under both the players, things were getting tough for the Indian team and hence the coach had to step in to make sure that the team was on the right path. Hence, Shastri called both the guys in his room and advised both of them to cover their rift here and sort out the problems so that the Indian team could move forward and focus more on the game.

“We landed in the United States (US) some 10 days after the World Cup for a T20 series against the West Indies in Lauderhill. One of the first things Ravi did on arrival was to call Virat and Rohit to his room and impress upon them that for Indian cricket to be healthy, they needed to be on the same page. 'Whatever happened on social media, that's all fine, but you two are the most senior cricketers so this must stop,' Ravi said in his typical non-nonsense manner. 'I want you to put all this behind and get together for us to move forward.”

When Coach Shastri stepped in, Kohli and Rohit got a chance to start over. Even though things weren't too bad, there was a risk of tension building up. Luckily, Shastri handled it well. As Sridhar noticed, Kohli and Rohit started getting along much better. They enjoyed each other's success and supported each other through tough times.

(Virat Kohli and Mohammed Shami in the 2019 ODI World Cup)

“You could see that things started to get better after that. Ravi's action was swift, simple and decisive. It was just getting both the guys together, sitting them down and making them talk. Ravi didn't waste any time in doing so. That he felt encouraged to call the white-ball captain and his deputy to clearly state his mind is indicative of the kind of atmosphere we had facilitated. That Virat and Rohit saw reason in Ravi's stance and immediately got down to business was the ultimate tribute to our culture 'one for all, all for one, but team above all.”

You could see it when they celebrated India's win against Australia in a video that went viral. And when Rohit lifted Kohli after a great match against Pakistan, it showed how strong their bond had become. These moments prove that Kohli and Rohit are closer than ever, overcoming any disagreements they might have had before.