Image Credit- Getty
Following India’s exciting victory over South Africa in the Barbados World Cup final, Rohit Sharma has announced his retirement from Twenty20 international cricket, joining Virat Kohli in doing so. He affirmed that he would carry on participating in Tests and ODIs.
Soon after India won their second T20 World Cup in Barbados, Virat Kohli announced that his career as an international player was coming to a close with a World Cup trophy.
“This was my last T20 World Cup and this is exactly what we wanted to achieve,” Kohli said after winning the Player-of-the-Match award for his 59-ball 76 in India’s seven-run victory against South Africa in a thrilling finish. “This is an amazing game, I was telling Rohit today when we went out to bat that one day you feel like you can’t get a run, and then you come out and things happen. God is great. I bow my head in gratitude. I’m really grateful was able to get the job done for the team when it mattered the most.
“This is my last T20 game playing for India, my last World Cup I was going to play,” Kohli added. “I wanted to make the most of it. And this was our aim. We wanted to win an ICC tournament, we wanted to lift the cup. This was an open secret, it was not something that I was not going to announce if we’d lost,”
“This was my last [T20I] game as well,” Rohit said at the press conference after the final. “No better time to say goodbye to this format. I’ve loved every moment of this. I started my India career playing this format. This is what I wanted, I wanted to win the cup.
With 4231 runs in 159 games, Rohit is the format’s best scorer going out. He also owns the record for most hundreds (five) in T20 internationals. He has won two T20 World Cups: the first in 2007 while competing and the current one in 2024 as captain.
After 125 matches in the Twenty20 International format, Kohli finished as the second-highest run scorer for India (after Rohit), with 4188 runs at an average of 48.69 and a strike rate of 137.04.
The news that Rohit and Kohli will be leaving the T20I format was not totally shocking. Following India’s loss in the 2022 T20 World Cup semifinal, neither player participated in any Twenty20 Internationals (T20Is). They just started participating again in January of this year, with an eye on the 2024 T20 World Cup.
Rohit finished the tournament as the second-highest run-scorer – 257 at a strike rate of 156.70 – in difficult batting conditions in the USA and the West Indies. He took on the responsibility of giving India fast starts with his attacking approach.