Virat Kohli said that the Indian cricket team doesn't endorse the "views" expressed by his colleagues Hardik Pandya and KL Rahul during their appearance on the sixth season of Karan Johar's celebrity chat show Koffee With Karan. “I can definitely say that as the Indian cricket team and responsible cricketers, we definitely don’t align with those views and those are purely individual views," Virat said at a press conference ahead of the ODI series opener in Sydney.
After the episode featuring Hardik and Rahul aired on January 6, Twitter was furious because of Hardik’s opinions – widely panned as ‘misogynistic and sexist’ by folks on social media. It caused outrage as such that Hotstar - the video streaming platform that aired the episode - pulled it off their website.
[caption id="attachment_164423" align="aligncenter" width="647"] File photo of Virat Kohli[/caption]
Virat, meanwhile, also said that his colleagues have understood what went wrong. “From the Indian cricket team point of view, any inappropriate comments that are made in that scenario are something that we definitely don’t support and the two concerned players felt what has gone wrong and they have understood the magnitude of what’s happened. From the Indian cricket team's point of view, this changes nothing in our beliefs in the change room, it does nothing to the spirit we have been able to create," Virat added.
[caption id="attachment_193479" align="aligncenter" width="647"] Hardik Pandya, Karan Johar and KL Rahul[/caption]
After receiving enough backlash, Hardik issued an apology note on social media in which he said that got “carried away with the nature of the show” and did not intend to disrespect sentiments.
https://twitter.com/hardikpandya7/status/1082823344662171649?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1082823344662171649&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.peepingmoon.com%2Ftelevision-news%2Fbuzz%2Fkwk-6-got-carried-away-says-hardik-pandya-as-bcci-issues-show-cause-notice-for-his-sexist-comments-on-women-194802%2F
The BCCI, in fact, had also issued show cause notices to Hardik as well as Rahul in lieu of their comments on women.