Barbados: Indian cricket icons, Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, announced their retirement from T20 Internationals (T20I) after steering India to the T20 World Cup 2024 title on Saturday.

Virat Kohli, who was declared the ‘Player of the Match’ for scoring 76 off 59 deliveries, said, “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.”

“This was an open secret; it was not something that I was not going to announce if we’d lost. It’s time for the next generation to take over. There are some amazing players playing in India. I’ve no doubts they’ll keep the flag waving high, and really take this team further from here now,” he added.

Kohli played 125 T20I matches in his career, scoring 4,188 runs at an average of 48.69 and a strike rate of 137.04. He is the second-highest scorer in the format. The ace Indian batter, who made his T20I debut against Zimbabwe in 2010, is also the fastest batter to reach the 3,500-run milestone in T20Is, hitting the mark in just 96 innings.

With 1,292 runs in 35 matches, Kohli, a former Team India captain across formats, also finishes his career at the top of the run scorers’ charts in T20 World Cups. He remains the only player to have been the highest run scorer in two different T20 World Cups.

Kohli scored 319 runs in the 2014 World Cup in Bangladesh and followed it up with 296 runs in the 2022 edition in Australia. His 319 runs in 2014, scored at an average of 106.33, is the highest run tally for any batsman at a single edition of the T20 World Cup. He was also named in the ICC Men’s T20I Team of the Decade from 2011 to 2020.

Rohit Sharma, with 4,231 runs in 159 outings, has accumulated more runs in the T20I format than Kohli. Rohit made his T20I debut in the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2007 against England and helped India win the trophy under M.S. Dhoni’s captaincy.

Confirming his decision to retire from T20 International cricket in the press conference following the T20 World Cup win, Rohit Sharma said, “This was my last (T20) game as well… No better time to say goodbye to this format. I’ve loved every moment of this. I started my India career playing this format. This is what I wanted; I wanted to win the cup.”

“I wanted this badly. Very hard to put in words. It was a very emotional moment for me. I was very desperate for this title in my life. Happy that we eventually crossed the line,” Rohit added.

He doubled up at the T20 World Cup 2024, leading the Indian men’s cricket team from the front as captain and finishing as his team’s highest run-scorer in the tournament with 257 in eight matches. The Hitman has also scored five T20I hundreds, the most in the format alongside Australia’s Glenn Maxwell.

As captain, the 37-year-old Rohit led India in 62 T20Is, winning 49 and losing only 12. The 35-year-old Kohli captained in 50 matches, emerging victorious in 30 while losing 16.