A Lesson To Be Learnt From the Kohli–Kumble Saga

If there is anything to be learnt from the Kohli–Kumble saga, it’s that in cricket, the captain will always have the final say and Kohli could not have taken this stand without the backing of his dressing room.

- Nikhil Naz

JUNE 16, BIRMINGHAM

A day after he takes his team to the finals of the 2017 Champions Trophy with a masterful 96, Virat Kohli is out of bed at 7 am. Celebrations can wait, he has more pressing matters to attend to. An hour later, he’s heading to London whilst his teammates are still asleep. They can afford to be. Unlike their captain, they will travel at leisure, with nothing but a day’s rest to look forward to.

JUNE 16, LONDON

Four hours later, Kohli is sitting in a meeting room at the Taj Hotel in London’s St James Court. Sitting across him are three of the biggest names in Indian cricket—Sourav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar and V.V.S. Laxman. The Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC) has decided Anil Kumble will continue as coach of the India cricket team and want Kohli’s stamp of approval before making it official. But the captain is having none of it.

JUNE 17, LONDON

A day to go for the Champions Trophy final; in a last-ditch effort the CAC calls on Kohli, again. The agenda remains the same, but so does the outcome.

A top source would later tell SportS Illustrated India, “Virat refused to budge, despite repeated requests.” Kumble, it is learnt, was keen to iron out any differences between them, believing that the two of them could still work in tandem for the betterment of Indian cricket. The results of the last 12 months were testament to that. But according to the well-placed source, “For Kohli the relationship was irreparable.”

JUNE 18, LONDON

Favourites India are shocked in the final of the Champions Trophy by the lowest-seeded team in the competition, in what also turns out to be the biggest defeat in terms of runs to arch-rivals Pakistan in a one-day game.