New Delhi: Former India fielding coach R Sridhar, in his book ‘Coaching Beyond: My Days with the Indian Cricket Team’, wrote about a split in the Indian cricket team and the environment where the social media and the team were divided into two camps. He called this divide Rohit camp and Virat camp and wrote about how the then head coach Ravi Shastri intervened to solve the issue.
There were speculations of some divide in the team after India’s exit from the 2019 World Cup and the split was clearly visible among the fans on social media. Talking about that, Sridhar wrote that after the 2019 World Cup, there was a lot of ‘bad press’ about the environment in the team’s dressing room. He added that they were ‘informed’ that there was a Rohit camp and a Virat camp and that someone unfollowed the other on social media.
He went on to write about an incident that took place just before the Indian team toured the USA for a T20I series against West Indies. He wrote that Ravi Shastri called both Kohli and Sharma into a room and told them to be on the same page for Indian cricket to be ‘healthy’. Shastri went on with his no-nonsense manner and said that whatever happened on social media, being the senior most players, they have to keep it behind and move forward together.
Sridhar wrote that Shastri did not waste time in having the conversation and things started to change after that.
There have been rumours about the split between Rohit and Virat and both have refuted such things time and again. These talks sparked again when Kohli was stripped-off his white ball captaincy, which led to him giving up the Test captaincy as well.
