Team India former cricketer & captain Sourav Ganguly on Saturday turned 51-years-old and best wishes from all around poured in for him. A day before social media was flooded with MS Dhoni birthday greetings, now on July 8, Sourav Ganguly's birthday broke the internet. Notably, Sourav Ganguly's birthday was the top trending topic on Google as well. While many fans & former cricketers acknowledged Sourav Ganguly's contribution to Indian cricket, Virat Kohli's fans were not happy with the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) social media page.
RCB on Saturday took to its Instagram and shared a series of photos of Sourav Ganguly and one with Virat Kohli. Interestingly, RCB shared the photo with the caption, "The man who changed the face of Indian Cricket!...Wishing you many happy returns of the day, Dada!" RCB's post on Sourav Ganguly's birthday did not go well with the fans and they pondered the rivalry between the two cricketers and how it was during Ganguly's tenure as BCCI President Virat Kohli had to step down from Team India's captaincy.
After the photo was shared by RCB, a user wrote, "We'll Never forgive what he did with our captain". Another user wrote, "Yaa we know how he has changed the face of world cricket". One more user wrote, "Caption:The man who changed the King Virats legacy"
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Virat Kohli vs Sourav Ganguly controversy
Once regarded as very close, things went wrong between Virat Kohli and Sourav Ganguly after the 2021 T20 World Cup. After Team India's dismal performance at the 2021 T20 World Cup, Virat Kohli stepped down from his leadership role, however, he did not mention anything about the ODIs & Test cricket. After Kohli quit the T20 captaincy, then BCCI President Sourav Ganguly sacked the Team India stalwart from the ODI captaincy as well and handed it over to his deputy Rohit Sharma.
After this, both Virat and Ganguly gave contrasting statements. Ganguly revealed that the board was not in favour of having split captains in limited-overs formats and he himself requested Virat Kohli to not step down as T20I captain, but when Kohli stepped down as T20I captain, BCCI decided to remove him as ODI captain as well. Then, Kohli revealed that he was contacted about his captaincy removal via a phone call. He said, “I was contacted one and a half hours before the selection meeting on the 8th for the Test series and there was no prior communication to me at all.” Although Kohli's form was not optimum when he was sacked as a skipper, fans knew the worth of him as he delivered many memorable victories for Team India. These contrasting statements clearly indicted the rift between the two. Again in the IPL 2023, during RCB vs DC match, Virat Kohli and Ganguly did not shake hands. However, in the second encounter, the duo were seen shaking hands, but it was quite evident that they do not enjoy each other's company anymore.