Virat Kohli, former Indian cricket team captain and Player of the Match in the T20 World Cup 2024 final, announced his retirement from the format right after India’s historic win over South Africa in the final In Barbados on Saturday. Kohli, who has been one of India’s best-ever crickets, said that it was time for the next generation to take over. For a boy who rose from the by-lanes of Delhi to rule world cricket, it was the perfect culmination of a T20I career that saw several highs as well as lows as captain.
“This was my last T20 World Cup, this is exactly what we wanted to achieve,” Kohli told the broadcast after India’s win in a global tournament after 11 years.
“One day you feel like you can’t get a run and this happens, God is great. (It is) just the occasion, now or never kind of situation. This was my last T20 game playing for India. We wanted to lift that cup,” he said.
“Yes I have, this was an open secret (retirement). 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,” Kohli confirmed when asked if he was making the official announcement about him calling it a day.
“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.
Topics mentioned in this article
 "BCCI want Test specialists to play domestic cricket; Rohit, Virat, Bumrah to be exceptions")
