On the first day of the second leg of the Indian Premier League 2021, Virat Kohli had announced that he will be stepping down as the captain of Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) after the season was over. 

However, a former Indian cricketer has shared that elite batsman’s tenure as the franchise leader may end sooner than he had first wanted it to be, especially because of the way he made his team operate against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in their first match of the second leg of IPL 2021.

“Look at the way he was playing against Kolkata Knight Riders. Just clueless! It seems he is struggling big time right now. There are chances that he could be removed mid-way through the season,” the former Indian cricketer told IANs on the basis of anonymity.

In just the last couple of weeks, Kohli has announced some drastic measures, including giving up his T20I captaincy once the T20 World Cup 2021 concludes. He had said that he wanted to give more time to his performance as a top-tier batter and reduce his workload as well.

Considering the fact that RCB not only got dismissed for 92 runs - the lowest team total in IPL 2021) - but also allowed KKR to win against them in just 10 overs, shows the lack of ability on the skipper’s part to make the best out of the worst.

“It has happened earlier also with other teams — like with Dinesh Karthik in KKR and David Warner in Sunrisers Hyderabad, among others. They were either removed or they stepped down mid-way. So it can happen in RCB as well… I have this feeling after watching yesterday’s match. One more bad game and you can see a change in RCB captaincy right away," added the former cricketer.

David Warner happily collecting balls running here and there outside the fence and throwing inside instead of sitting in the dugout. He's so passionate about involving himself in the game, hard days for him. pic.twitter.com/WQ2uCn1A0T

While Dinesh Karthik had announced stepping aside from captaincy and had got replaced by Eoin Morgan as KKR skipper back in IPL 2020, things turned out to be even more brutal for David Warner. Within a day’s time, the Australian not only lost his captaincy but was also removed from the Playing XI of SunRisers Hyderabad (SRH).

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