Virat Kohli, former Indian cricket team captain and Player of the Match in the T20 World Cup 2024 final, announced his retirement from the format right after India’s historic win over South Africa in the title clash in Barbados on Saturday. Kohli, who has been one of India’s best-ever cricketers, said that it was time for the next generation to take over. For a boy who rose from the by-lanes of Delhi to rule world cricket, it was the perfect culmination of a T20I career that saw several highs as well as lows as captain.
“This was my last T20 World Cup, this is exactly what we wanted to achieve,” Kohli told the broadcasters after India ended a 11-ear ICC title drought.
“One day you feel like you can’t get a run and this happens, God is great. (It is) just the occasion, now or never kind of situation. This was my last T20 game playing for India. We wanted to lift that cup.”
“Yes I have, this was an open secret (retirement). Not something that I wasn’t going to announce even if we had lost. Time for the next generation to take the T20 game forward,” Kohli confirmed when asked by Harsha Bhogle if he was making the official announcement about him calling it a day.
“It’s been a long wait for us, waiting to win an ICC tournament. You look at someone like Rohit (Sharma), he’s played 9 T20 World Cups and this is my sixth.
“He deserves it. It’s been difficult to hold things (emotions) back and I think it’s going to sink in later. It’s an amazing day and I’m thankful,” Kohli added.
Virat Kohli is one of those rare cricketers who have won both the ODI and the T20 World Cup now. Kohli played his first T20I in 2010 and then went on to play several T20 World Cup. But every time, India fell short until the 2024 edition, where Kohli emerged as a saviour after India’s horrendous start against South Africa. He scored a gritty 76 off 59 balls as India scored a record high total of 176/7 in a T20 World Cup final.
At the end of his glorious career, Virat Kohli finished with a tally of 4188 in 125 matches at an average of 48.69.
