An emotional Virat Kohli announced his retirement from T20 internationals right after India ended their decade-long trophy drought after winning the 2024 ICC Men's T20 World Cup. (Match Blog | Scorecard)
India defeated South Africa in the final of the T20 World Cup in Barbados on Saturday to lift their first ICC title since the 2013 Champions Trophy. Kohli who top-scored for India with a 59-ball 76 was adjudged the Player Of The Match for the final.
Kohli made his retirement announcement during his post match interview while receiving the award.
"This was my last T20 game playing for India," Kohli declared.
"We wanted to lift that cup. Wanted to Yes I have, this was an open secret. 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," an emotional Kohli added.
“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 in his post-match interview.
Kohli, a giant of Indian batting across formats, finishes his T20I career as the second leading run-scorer in the format just behind his skipper Rohit Sharma.
Making his debut in 2010 against Zimbabwe, the right-hander played 125 T20Is and scored 4188 runs at a strike rate of 137. His average of 48.69 is the second best, 0.03 runs lesser than Mohammad Rizwan, in the world for anyone who has scored 1,000 T20I runs.
His Player of the Match award in the final, 16th overall, helped him surpass teammate Suryakumar Yadav for most such awards won in T20Is.
Kohli still remains the only player in the history of T20 World Cups to win the Player of the Tournament trophy twice in 2014 and 2016 editions. The 35-year-old also finishes his career as India's highest run-scorer in T20 World Cups with 1292 runs.
Kohli also led the Indian T20I side from 2017 till 2021 in 50 matches winning 30 of them and losing just 16. He led India in the T20 World Cup just once in 2021 in UAE where India faced an embarrassing first-round exit.
