South Africa vs India 2021-22: Two Indian captains won't play together for now

Indian tour to South Africa is all set to begin from 26th December 2021 comprising of 3 test matches and 3-match ODI series. Just 2 weeks before the South Africa vs India 2021-22 tour, a disappointing incident happened with the white ball captain of the Indian team. Rohit Sharma suffered a minor hand injury while practicing during the nets session. He is going to be out of the test series against the Proteas. Thankfully, his injury is not a tear and he is completely out of danger. The white ball skipper is supposed to join the Indian ODI squad for the series and lead as well.

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Reason behind Virat Kohli's decision to not play:

On the other hand, the test captain Virat Kohli decided to rule out the ODI series against South Africa. Virat Kohli informed BCCI in advance that he will be taking a break during the initial days of January. Virat Kohli's daughter Vamika turns 1 in January 2022 and the ODI series' dates clashes with Vamika's birthday. Kohli decided to not participate in the ODI series on this account.

About 3 months before, Virat Kohli stepped down as the captain of the Indian T20 team. And now BCCI announced that Rohit Sharma will be replacing Kohli as the ODI captain along with his T20I responsibilities as well. After this announcement, Sourav Ganguly, BCCI President released a statement where he mentioned that he personally spoke with Virat. He also mentioned a shocking disclosure where BCCI asked Kohli to not resign from his T20 captaincy. Though Virat has not responded to any of the above-mentioned statements yet.

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Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli are the two brightest stars of the Indian cricket team. There have been hundreds of speculations and rumors about a rift going on between these legends. The rumor got fired up after both the captains indirectly denied playing under each other. Not getting along well due to egoistic reasons is nothing new in the Indian dressing room. Previously we saw Kapil Dev, Sunil Gavaskar, Mohammad Azharuddin, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, Gautam Gambhir, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, and so many having issues. But fortunately, that did not hamper the sport anyhow.

This time both Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli have justified reasons to not play but it is only a matter of time to see what happens next. BCCI definitely has a lot on its plates in the future to resolve all kinds of breaches between them and focus solely on the game.