The iconic Indian cricketer, Virat Kohli bid farewell to T20 International cricket. He made the announcement soon after winning the championship title of T20 World Cup 2024.
India won the T20 trophy after 17 years of long wait. It was also the last game of the head coach, Rahul Dravid. Winning the title was the only aim of Virat Kohli.
He received the Player-of-the-Match award for his 59-ball off 76 against South Africa and there he announced his retirement from T20I cricket,
“This was my last T20 World Cup and this is exactly what we wanted to achieve...This is my last T20 game playing for India, my last World Cup I was going to play. 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. As I said, it was the occasion that helped me put my head down and respect the situation rather than trying to force things out there, and play the game my team wanted me to play.“
The captain of Indian cricket team, Rohit Sharma also announced the retirement on the same occasion. All-rounder, Ravindra Jadeja also called it quits from T20 internationals after India’s T20 World Cup 2024 triumph.
Virat Kohli couldn’t give his best in the T20 World Cup 2024 matches. But in the title winning match, Virat contributed 76runs to a total of 176. However, in the IPL he has never been out of form.
Will Virat Kohli Bid Farewell to IPL as Well?
Virat Kohli is the only player who has played all seasons of Indian Premier League for a single team- Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB). RCB chose Virat Kohli soon after he led India to Under-19 World Cup victory.
In the IPL, King Kohli (as fans call him), showcased some scintillating records. He is the highest run-scorer, the only with more than 8000 runs. Also, he has won the Orange cap twice- in 2016 and 2024.
He also has most prolific partnerships in the IPL to his name, with AB de Villiers (3123 runs) and Chris Gayle (2787 runs). It is because of the popularity of Virat Kohli that RCB is the most followed team of IPL, even though they haven’t won a title yet.
Virat Kohli retired from T20I on a winning note. In a similar fashion, he will be aiming to end his journey with RCB with a long awaited championship.
Tabinda Mir is a writer from Kashmir. She is an English Honours graduate and her interests primarily dwell in poetry and sports writing. She likes to cover Cricket as an avid fan. Apart from sports, her other publications include articles, poems and a letter to summer in the book titled, “Under The Summer Skies”.
Also, her leisure time activities include reading novels, poetry, non literary works, philosophies and writing poetry, short stories, articles on diverse themes.
