Virat Kohli, the former India skipper, decided to hang up his boots from T20Is after India’s nail-biting seven-run win against South Africa in the summit clash of the 2024 ICC T20 World Cup in Barbados. He was also adjudged the Player of the Match for his fine 59-ball 76 in his final T20I.
“This was my last T20 World Cup, this is exactly what we wanted to achieve,” Kohli said in the presentation ceremony on Saturday. “One day you feel like you can’t get a run and this happens, God is great. 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 [announced my retirement from T20Is], this was an open secret. It was not something that I wasn’t going to announce even if we had lost. It’s time for the next generation to take the T20 game forward. It’s been a long wait for us, waiting to win an ICC tournament. You look at someone like Rohit [Sharma], he’s played nine T20 World Cups and this is my sixth. He deserves it.”
Kohli, who played his maiden T20I in June 2010 against Zimbabwe, partook in 125 matches in the shortest format, amassing 4188 runs. He cracked one hundred, which came against Afghanistan, alongside 38 fifties. He was named the Player of the Tournament twice in 2014 and 2016 respectively. A couple of his finest efforts in this format came in T20 World Cups – against Pakistan and Australia – at MCG and Mohali, in 2022 and 2016 respectively. Kohli is currently the second highest run-getter in T20Is.