A spoilt brat – that was something associated with Virat Kohli when he was a youngster, with the overenthusiastic attitude of his rubbing most people the wrong way. Then came the Virat Kohli transformation, from the spoilt brat to a well-spoken, mature leader, one who would go on to become the captain of India in all formats.
Over the past few weeks, though, that spoilt brat moniker has returned.
As rumours of a Virat Kohli-Anil Kumble rift swirled around just prior to the start of the ICC Champions Trophy with those reports continuing on as India reached the final, before going down to a superior Pakistan team, Kohli was painted as the villain and Kumble as the man being put in an awkward position for just trying to do his job.
Now, those reports could turn out to be completely true – maybe, Kohli is still very much a spoilt brat and that mature persona is just that, a persona for public view.
But then, the problem with such reports is that you only ever hear one side of the story, the story of the "source" or "sources" who are usually allied to one camp.
Clearly, at the end of this sad, sad captain-coach affair, Kohli has come out looking like a little child who threw his toys out of the pram the moment he stopped getting his way, while Kumble has been made to look like the dignified man that everyone sees him as.
The statement put out by Kumble announcing his decision to leave the post as India coach only helped in strengthening that feeling, with the former leg-spinner saying he had been told the captain had "reservations with my style," and as a result his position had become "untenable."
Now that doesn't make great reading if you are in the Virat Kohli camp now does it.
But then again, it is one side of the story.
Obviously, Kohli has problems with Kumble, which is why the India coach was forced to step down after his initial contract came to an end. The question to be asked is why the relationship soured so badly. Why did the players – and this must be stressed, Kohli wasn't the only one who had a problem with Kumble – have such reservations over the Indian legend continuing as coach?
Now, Kumble has come out looking like the knight in shining armour that has been horribly wronged by a bunch of spoilt brats led by the spoilt captain in chief. And while the Twittersphere is going all out in their criticism for Kohli, Kumble did not exactly come across well in that statement.
Was there a need to mention the reason for his decision and use "style" in quotes? Understandably Kumble is hurt by all that has happened and nobody will feel great when your players gang up on you and ask you to leave. But, the dignified approach would have been to just put out a statement saying he is stepping down as coach and then go on with the usual "honour, pleasure and will forever cherish," line that everyone uses.
By more than hinting at the issues and trying to paint himself as the victim, Kumble has probably only strengthened the players' belief in the dressing room that they were right in not wanting the coach to continue.
Amongst the various reports that came out on the Kohli-Kumble spat, one of them mentioned Kumble's penchant to leak personal conversations with the players to a select group in the media.
Now, what goes on in the dressing room and the conversations you have should be sacrosanct, and you can see, if those reports are true, why the players would have a problem with it.
The other major issue, of course, was that Kumble's disciplinary rules, rules, rules ways rubbed the players the wrong way.
Again, there are two ways to look at it: the obvious "spoilt brats, they can't even take a bit of discipline" way or the "these are senior professionals and treating them like schoolchildren will get you nowhere," way.
This is where the role of a cricket coach and what lines they can or cannot cross gets a little blurred. Is the coach the leader of the team or is it the captain? Is it the coach who puts in the rules or is that the captain's job? Is the coach's role in cricket just to support the captain's decisions and help out wherever needed – the leader of the support staff if you will or is it more?
Shane Warne has said many times, in cricket, coaches are unnecessary and does anyone honestly believe that India would have lost to New Zealand, England, Bangladesh and Australia in the home Test series if Kumble wasn't at the helm? Say, if Ravi Shastri was still the coach, would India have suddenly lost all of those series?
At the end of the day, a coach's role is a tricky one and the moment you try and overstep those unwritten boundaries, you will end up in the position that Kumble finds himself in.
When Kohli denied any rift
Clearly, there was no need for Kohli to take the villain's role unless it was absolutely necessary. The players were unhappy with Kumble, and Kohli, as their leader, was the one who had to tell it like it is to the BCCI, COA and the CAC, comprising of Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman.
Could all this have been avoided? Heck yes. If Kohli, the players and Kumble had just spoken to each other the moment these problems had arisen, maybe the issue could have been nipped in the bud before it turned into the monster that it eventually became.
Have Kohli and his teammates acted like entitled, spoilt brats? Quite possibly.
But does that mean Kumble did no wrong? No, it doesn't.
Sometimes relationships just don't work, even if it is a real pity that this one didn't. To have Kumble, with that SLR camera of his, taking a picture of the winning moment, as Kohli leads India to victory in the 2019 World Cup final would have been the perfect story.
It just wasn't to be.
