After Kumble’s resignation, many former players are criticising skipper Kohli and holding him responsible for this situation. Former India captain and legendary batsman Sunil Gavaskar has also expressed his disappointment with the way Kohli, BCCI as well as the team treated former India coach Anil Kumble, in the end forcing him to quit.
Gavaskar worte in his column of Sportstar,”What happened to Anil Kumble was sad, very sad indeed. The Indian cricket legend was humiliated to say the least. No top player will want to throw his hat in the ring after what happened to Kumble. It is clear that the Indian players want people who sit back and do nothing rather than go-getters who get results.”
The 46-year-old former Indian player, in a statement posted on his Twitter account, also revealed that it was only a day before that he got to know through the BCCI that Kohli had reservations with his ‘style’ and his continual as the head coach.
On this, Gavaskar further wrote,”….Then the BCCI stepped in and informed Kumble that Virat Kohli had reservations about his style of coaching. So Kumble did the only thing he could have and walked away with his head held high. Kumble could have also stuck around, but in an atmosphere where the skipper and maybe others in the team did not like his method of operating it would have been a tense situation every single hour. While Kumble, in his letter, has expressed that he was not aware of the skipper’s feelings about his coaching style until the BCCI informed him, Kohli has chosen not to elaborate. He just said that dressing room matters should be left in the dressing room and not brought in the public domain.”
Gavaskar feels that legends cannot stay India’s coach for long because, current players have started getting uncomfortable with the attention that the legend gets which leads to leaks about the coach and his coaching methods. On this, he wrote, “The coach’s job should never be dependent on the players’ views, for they would always seek coaches who will listen to them rather than the other way around. One of the reasons why legends don’t stay for long as coaches, especially in India, is because the current players become uncomfortable with the attention that the legend gets, while they sometimes get ignored. Thus the leaks to the media about the coach and his methods, which make the coach’s position untenable, as Kumble found out and mentioned in his letter.”