Virat Kohli announced his retirement from T20Is following India’s seven-run victory against South Africa in the 2024 Men’s T20 World Cup. He was awarded the Player of the Match for his 59-ball 76 in his last T20I which helped India lift its second World T20 title.
“This was my last T20 World Cup, this is exactly what we wanted to achieve,” Kohli said in the post-match presentation 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”, said Kohli.
“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, he’s played 9 T20 World Cups and this is my sixth. He deserves it”, added Kohli.
Kohli, who made his T20 debut in June 2010, featured in 125 T20Is and scored 4188 runs, which included one century and 38 half-centuries. He finished as the second-highest run-getter in T20Is, behind Rohit Sharma.
