Virat Kohli Retires From T20Is After India Beat South Africa In T20 World Cup 2024 Final
New Delhi: Virat Kohli announced his retirement from the shortest format of the game after India defeated South Africa in the T20 world Cup 2024 final by seven runs. Kohli, who didn’t have the best time with the bat in the tournament, came to the fore when it mattered the most with a crucial 76 to lead India to 176/6. In reply, South Africa managed 169/8 to give India their just second T20 World Cup title. It was also Kohli’s maiden T20 World Cup title. With this win, Rohit Sharma joins the elite list of Indian captains to have lead the country to a World title.
Kapil Dev gave India the first world title in 1983 before MS Dhoni guided the Men in Blue to the 2007 T20 World Cup and 2011 ODI World Cup titles. Before this T20 World Cup, Kohli had won the 2011 ODI World Cup and 2013 Champions Trophy with India.
Kohli anchored the innings with a match-winning 59-ball 76 with two sixes and six fours to lift India from a precarious 34/3 inside the powerplay. Adjudged the Player of the Match for his half-century, Kohli stunned everyone with his speech when he announced that this was his final T20I game for India. “This was my last T20 World Cup, this is exactly what we wanted to achieve. 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,” he said.
“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. 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,” Kohli said,” he added. Following the win, Kohli called his family and was caught in tears. He then blowed imaginary kisses to the other person (probably his wife Anushka Sharma) on the phone.