One of the greatest chapters of T20I cricket ended when Virat Kohli announced his retirement from the shortest format of the game for India just a few moments after Men in Blue were crowned as the Champions of the 2024 T20 World Cup after 17 years defeating South Africa in the final by seven runs at Kensington Oval, Barbados on 29th June.
It was a bittersweet moment for all the Indian fans as on the one hand they were exhilarated with India’s first ICC title win in 11 years, while on the other hand, two of their greatest batters Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma bid adieu to the T20I respectively just a few moments after guiding India towards glory.
Virat Kohli ends his T20I career as World Champion
After years of being the most dependable batter for India in the T20 World Cup, Kohli finally got a taste of glory in his last T20 international for the country. After winning Player of the Tournament consecutively in the 2014 and 2016 T20 World Cup, Kohli also finished as the Top Run scorer in the 2022 edition in Australia and the fans were again having big hopes from him ahead of the 2024 edition.
However, Kohli had a completely different campaign this year where he couldn’t even cross the double-digit in a few games. However, it didn’t affect India much as they kept winning games continuously. But when it mattered the most, Kohli stood up for India on the big stage playing a knock of 76 runs off 59 balls, which turned out to be his last T20 international for India. With the help of his knock and Axar Patel’s quickfire 47 runs off 31 balls, India posted 176/7 on board and went on to win the game by seven runs to win their second T20 World Cup.
As Virat Kohli finally had a fairytale ending to his glorious T20I career, let’s have a look at some of his greatest moments in the shortest format.