Former India cricketer Dilip Vengsarkar called out the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and its president Sourav Ganguly for the way they sacked Virat Kohli from the ODI captain’s position earlier this month.

Rohit Sharma was appointed as India’s ODI skipper after which Kohli made some sensational claims in a press conference before departing for the tour of South Africa.

Kohli contradicted Ganguly by saying that he didn’t get a call from anybody from the board asking him to continue as the T20I captain and also claimed that he was informed of his removal from the ODI job less than two hours before the squad for the South Africa series was announced.

Vengsarkar said the entire episode was “unfortunate” and criticised Ganguly for adding fuel to fire by “speaking on behalf of the selectors” on why they wanted to fire Kohli.

“It’s very unfortunate, the whole thing. I think it should have been handled more professionally by the cricket board.

“The thing is that Ganguly had no business to speak on behalf of the selection committee. Ganguly is the president of BCCI. Any issue about selection or captaincy, it’s the chairman of the selection committee who should speak,” Vengsarkar told the Khaleej Times.

The former India chief selector also felt that Kohli would have been hurt by the BCCI’s unprofessionalism and the way they dealt with the whole situation.

“Ganguly spoke about the whole thing, obviously Virat wanted to make his case clear. I believe it should have been between the chairman of the selection committee and the captain. A captain is selected or removed by the selection committee, that’s not Ganguly’s jurisdiction at all.

“Yes, things should change now. Kohli, you have to respect him, he has done so much for the country, so much for Indian cricket. But how they dealt with him, it must have definitely hurt him,” Vengsarkar added.

Kohli is going to lead the Test team in the upcoming 3-match series in South Africa from December 26 while Rohit, who was ruled out of the red-ball matches with a hamstring injury, will join the team next month and captain the ODI side from January 19, if he’s fit.