What’s sports without rivalry? It spices up contests. Gives athletes/teams and their ardent fans an extra reason to look forward to the matchups. Sometimes, it serves as an added motivation for individuals involved but when it’s within the same setup, it might prove detrimental.

Something similar was brewing up within the Indian men’s cricket team not so long ago. It was a rivalry, to use a gentle term, that led to a divided camp within the dressing room. The news spread, but the Indian team's management denied its existence, dismissing it as a media invention. However, with the apparent damage to the relationship repaired, those who witnessed the tension between two of the greatest batters of the modern era - Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli - are being told by those who witnessed it first-hand.

Former India fielding coach R Sridhar has confirmed that the differences between Rohit and Kohli weren’t just rumours. They existed but were handled much before the situation could wriggle out of control.

In his book 'Coaching Beyond,' Sridhar discusses, “After the 2019 World Cup, there was a lot of bad press about what allegedly happened in the dressing room during our campaign and following our loss to New Zealand in the semifinal. We were informed that there was a Rohit camp and a Virat camp, that someone had unfollowed another on social media – stuff that could be unsettling if you allowed it to fester," Sridhar wrote.

Sridhar writes, “We landed in the United States (US) some 10 days after the World Cup for a T20 series against West Indies in Lauderhill. One of the first things Ravi did on arrival was to call Virat and Rohit to his room and impress upon them that for Indian cricket to be healthy, they needed to be on the same page. ‘Whatever happened on social media, that’s all fine, but you two are the most senior cricketers so this must stop,’ Ravi said in his typical non-nonsense manner. ‘I want you to put all this behind and get together for us to move forward'".

“You could see that things started to get better after that. Ravi’s action was swift, simple and decisive. It was just getting both the guys together, sitting them down and making them talk. Ravi didn’t waste any time in doing so. That he felt encouraged to call the white-ball captain and his deputy to clearly state his mind is indicative of the kind of atmosphere we had facilitated," he wrote.

Tags :Virat KohliRohit SharmaRavi ShastriShridharIndian cricket team