Shane Watson on the incident involving Virat Kohli and Sourav Ganguly’s ‘no handshake’: “There was definitely some fire in Virat’s belly.”

Due to several on-field exchanges between Virat Kohli and Sourav Ganguly during the game between Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) and Delhi Capitals (DC) on April 15, there was controversy around the game. At Bengaluru’s M Chinnaswamy Stadium, RCB defeated DC by 23 runs, handing them their sixth straight defeat in the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL). After RCB’s victory, Kohli greeted Ricky Ponting, the DC coach and a former Australian cricketer. Before the DC head coach stopped him for a brief talk, he disregarded Ganguly. Ganguly continued to greet the other RCB players while ignoring the RCB batter. Notably, it was reported that the former RCB captain unfollowed the former Indian captain on Instagram following the altercation. Additionally, Ganguly followed suit on the social media website. While everything was going on, the ‘The Grade Cricketer’ podcast asked former Australia all-rounder Shane Watson, who is currently the DC team’s assistant coach, to explain the circumstances surrounding the two cricketers. Watson refrained from providing more specifics but said that Kohli seemed to have “fire in his belly.” He added that he is unsure of the precise reason for the incident that happened after the competition.

“I’m not sure if that’s rumor-mongering, but it might be. Therefore, I don’t want to get involved in it. But it’s undeniable that Virat had some fire in his belly. That is also the last thing you need, from the perspective of the adversary. When Virat is acting in that way, he is at his best. I’m not exactly sure why that was, for whatever reason,” Shane Watson added.

Notably, the apparent conflict between the two Indian cricketers began when Ganguly was president of the BCCI and Kohli served as captain of the national team. The resignation of Kohli as India’s T20I captain seems to irk Ganguly and former top selector Chetan Sharma. The 34-year-old batter was then relieved of his duties as ODI captain, and a month later, he also resigned as Test captain.