After Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma announces retirement after winning T20 World Cup 2024

29th June 2024 will be a date etched in Indian cricket history as the Men In Blue won the ICC T20 World Cup 2024 in Barbados. However, just when the party had begun, Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, 2 icons of Indian cricket announced their retirement.

Life came full circle for Rohit Sharma as he began his international career with the 2007 T20 World Cup win. Then, he was one of the youngest members of the Indian team who won the trophy under MS Dhoni in Johannesburg. However, in Barbados, he was the captain of the Indian team that entered the history books forever.

India has been chasing an ICC title for the last 11 years. The ICC Champions Trophy 2013 was the last silverware that the Men in Blue had won as far as winning ICC tournaments is concerned. In their bid, they gave the reins of the Indian team to Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma who succeeded MS Dhoni as the captains in ICC tournaments.

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Virat Kohli could not do it for the Men In Blue as he got close but always lacked winning the final frontier. The BCCI then decided to bring in Rohit Sharma as the captain of the Indian team across all 3 formats after the ICC T20 World Cup 2021.

The 1st ICC tournament in which Rohit captained India, came in the form of the 2022 ICC T20 World Cup and it was then when India decided that they needed to approach limited-overs cricket in a different way.

Rohit Sharma: The Man of His Words

After the T20 World Cup 2022 in Australia, Rohit asserted his willingness to adopt an aggressive style of play in limited-overs cricket for team India. The first glimpse of it was seen in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2023 wherein Rohit walked the talk.

In each game of the tournament, Rohit ensured that he got India off to a flying start and set the tone for the other batters to follow. However, the tryst with destiny for the Indian captain was set to be elongated when Australia dented India's perfect World Cup campaign in Ahmedabad on the night of 19th November 2023.

Jay Shah, BCCI secretary, cleared the air after the ODI World Cup 2023 that team India will be playing the ICC T20 World Cup 2024 under Rohit Sharma's leadership and Rahul Dravid's coaching.

There was a lot of speculation on how Rohit and Virat Kohli will fare in this T20 World Cup given their IPL form and the challenging conditions for batting in the USA and West Indies.

However, Rohit Sharma turned on the World Cup mode in him and did exactly what he had committed to the Indian fans after the 2022 loss. In the final, it was Virat Kohli who came up with his best knock of the tournament as team India flew off from the West Indies with the ICC T20 World Cup trophy in their luggage.

Virat Kohli and Rohit announce their retirements

The whole country was ecstatic and celebrating when Virat Kohli came up in the post-match presentation and announced that he had retired from T20Is and would allow the younger generation of Indian players to take the team to greater heights from here.

Even before the happiness of winning the T20 World Cup could sink in, Indian captain, Rohit Sharma came in the post-match press conference and announced his retirement from the T20I format too.

"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. We wanted to lift that cup," Virat Kohli stated in the post-match presentation

"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 and do wonders as we have seen them do in the IPL. I have no doubts that they will keep the flag waving high and take this team further from here now," Kohli further added.