Cricket / BCCI shares Team India's group picture, fans ask 'Where is Virat Kohli?'

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) hosted its annual awards night in Mumbai which saw the who’s who of the Indian cricketing world attending the gala event. The event saw Indian pacer Jasprit Bumrah winning big time as he was given the prestigious Polly Umrigar award and Dilip Sardesai award for his brilliant contribution to Indian cricket in 2018-19.

Dubbed the Naman Awards, BCCI felicitated many cricketers for the performances on both international circuits and domestic cricket as well, including the women cricketers who made the nation proud. Poonam Yadav was given the award for Best International Cricketer in the women’s category. Mayank Agarwal and Shafali Verma won the best international debut in men’s and women’s category respectively.

#TeamIndia all smiles at #NAMAN pic.twitter.com/ldP7xU43H5

— BCCI (@BCCI) January 12, 2020

Former skipper Krishnamachari Srikkanth was given the Col, CK Nayudu Lifetime Achievement Award, while Anjum Chopra was given the BCCI lifetime achievement award for women. Dilip Joshi won the special BCCI award that night. Cheteshwar Pujara won the Dilip Sardesai award for most runs in Tests, while Shivam Dube and Nitish Rana won the Lala Amarnath award for best all-rounders.

Smriti Mandhana and Jhulan Goswami picked up awards for most runs and most wickets in women’s ODIs for the year 2018-19. Virendra Sharma won the best domestic umpire award.

Fans search for missing Virat Kohli in BCCI’s photo

However, the event saw the BCCI making a mistake as they posted the Indian team photo on their official Twitter account. All the members of the current Indian cricket team poised to face the Australian team in the first ODI match on January 14, including the Indian captain Virat Kohli attended the event. However, when the photo was posted on social media by the BCCI, a key member was missing from the lineup- captain Kohli himself.

Kohli had been clicked sitting alongside Lifetime achievement award winner Kris Srikkanth during the awards night. But was nowhere to be seen in the Indian team photo. This led to Twitterverse making fun of the Indian cricket board for making such a huge gaffe and the social media platform was filled with funny replies from fans on the photo.