'I had a chat with Kohli during IPL 2021 first half. He was then talking about stepping away': Ponting's huge revelation

Former Australia captain Ricky Ponting on Monday made a massive revelation on Virat Kohli's decision to step away from T20I captaincy, a decision which he had announced back in September, before the start of India's T20 World Cup campaign in the UAE.

Speaking to former cricketer Isa Guha on the first episode of The ICC Review, Ponting revealed during a chat with the 33-year-old during the first leg of the 2021 season of the Indian Premier League (IPL), which was held between between April 9 and May 2 before the tournament got postponed owing to rise in Covid concern in India, Kohli had talked about stepping away from white-ball captaincy. This implies that Kohli had made up his mind five months before he had made the official announcement on Twitter.

Ponting's revelation came when he was expressing how shocked Kohli's call over Test captaincy left him given his discussion with the Indian batter during IPL 2021 when he had passionately talked about Test cricket.

ALSO READ: 'Proof is in the pudding with what he has done at...': Ricky Ponting picks Virat Kohli's successor as Test captain

“Yes, it did actually (surprise me)," said Ponting. "Probably the main reason why is I had a chat and good catch-up with Virat during the first part of the IPL (2021) before it got postponed.

"He was talking then about stepping away (from captaincy) from white-ball cricket and how passionate he was to continue on to be Test match captain. He just loved and cherished that job and that post so much. Obviously, the Indian Test team had achieved a lot under his leadership. When I heard it, I was really, really surprised.

"You only have to watch him on the field for an hour of the day's play to realise how passionate he is about that job and the role, and how much he wants the team to win and how much he wants the best for Indian cricket."

A month after the T20 World Cup, Kohli was removed from ODI captaincy which was followed by a huge controversy in Indian cricket. Later in January, a day after India's 2-1 Test series defeat in South Africa, Kohli had taken to Twitter to announce his decision to step down from Test captaincy role.

The legendary cricketer then tried to decode the reason behind Kohli's call admitting that India has always been the world's most difficult team to captain owing to immense pressure from the fans.

"I was shocked, but then I started thinking about other things, even my own time as captain. I have gone on record and said that I probably think I played a couple of years longer than I should have in hindsight. I think I might have been captain for a couple of years longer than I should have.

"So I think there is potentially a shelf-life for international cricket captains and even coaches. Virat's been there for close to seven years now. If there's a country in the world that's the most difficult to captain, it’s probably India because of just how popular the game is and how much every single Indian loves to see the fortunes of the Indian cricket team, whether they are good or bad. You weigh all those things up.”