World Cup 2023: How Rahul Dravid helped thaw relations between Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma

Time was when there were frayed tempers between ex-captain Virat Kohli and the BCCI. Kohli and the then BCCI president Sourav Ganguly had openly dissented against each other, washing dirty linen in public. 

November 17, 2021

Rahul Dravid, the new coach took over from Ravi Shastri, under whose tenure, India had done disastrously at the T-20 World Cup. 

January 15, 2022

Virat Kohli, who had quit T-20 captaincy, was forced to quit ODI captaincy too. At that point in time, India were in South Africa, playing a test series. Unfortunately, India lost the series as well. Kohli bid goodbye to test captaincy too. 

Factionalism in Indian cricket

Interestingly, Indian cricket was split into two factions. One owed its loyalty to the outgoing skipper Virat Kohli and the other, to Rohit Sharma, the newly crowned king. At his crucial juncture, it was Rahul Dravid who had to delete bad blood and infuse a new bond in the team. 

T-20 World Cup, 2022

As per BCCI sources, Rahul Dravid spent a lot of time speaking to seniors in the team, at that point in time. Finally, there was a thaw in the relationship shared between the two (Rohit and Kohli) performed well in the tournament. Rohit even praised Kohli unconditionally for his efforts in beating Pakistan.