Shane Watson, the assistant coach of Delhi Capitals, has commented on the alleged stare-off between Virat Kohli and Sourav Ganguly during an IPL 2023 match between Royal Challengers Bangalore and DC. Watson described the incident as potentially being “rumour-mongering” and stated that he did not want to get involved in it.

“It could be rumour-mongering, but I’m not sure. So, it’s not something I want to get involved in,” Watson said on Grade Cricket’s YouTube channel.

Watson, however, pointed out that there was “definitely some fire in Kohli’s belly”.

“But there was definitely some fire in Virat’s belly, that’s for sure. For an opposition point of view, that’s the last thing you need as well. Virat, when he’s like that, that’s when he’s at his absolute best. Whatever reason that was, I’m not exactly sure,” Watson added.

The way Virat Kohli looked at ganguly pic.twitter.com/pLoAzyn9EI
— itz_mksoni25 (@_itz_mksoni25) April 17, 2023

After RCB defeated DC by 23 runs in Bengaluru, controversy erupted when the players from both teams shook hands. Kohli and DC’s director of cricket Ganguly did not greet each other and walked off straight away. Kohli then unfollowed Ganguly on social media, and Ganguly promptly returned the favour.

Kohli vs Ganguly: When did it start?

The major rift between Ganguly and Kohli began when the latter was unexpectedly stripped of his ODI captaincy in December 2021. Ganguly, as the BCCI President, claimed that Kohli had been informed of the board’s decision beforehand. Kohli responded by holding a press conference and stating that he had not been consulted on the matter and had only been notified 90 minutes before the meeting. He also placed the blame on Ganguly for his removal as the ODI captain. This incident occurred during a challenging period for Kohli, and it left him feeling extremely disappointed.

Despite these off-field issues, Kohli has been playing a pivotal role for RCB and has been providing excellent starts to the team alongside captain Faf du Plessis. RCB currently sit in fifth place in the IPL points table, with six points from six matches.