Rohit Sharma joins Kohli, ends T20 career after World Cup win

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (AP) — Barely an hour after guiding India to an exciting seven-run victory over South Africa within the Twenty20 World Cup last, Rohit Sharma joined fellow star batter Virat Kohli in saying his retirement from worldwide T20 matches.

“This was my final sport as properly,” Sharma mentioned on the press convention after Saturday’s last which broke a 13-year lengthy drought for India at main tournaments. “No higher time to say goodbye to this format.”

Sharma, 37, is the format’s highest scorer with 4231 runs in 159 matches for India, with 5 centuries. Saturday’s breakthrough win was his second T20 World Cup success after successful the inaugural event in 2007.

He has performed in each T20 World Cup event since, with solely Bangladesh’s Shakib Al Hasan doing likewise.

“I’ve liked each second of this. I began my India profession taking part in this format,” Sharma mentioned. “That is what I wished, I wished to win the cup and say thanks.”

Whereas Kohli struggled for kind for almost all of the event earlier than his man of the match innings of 76 off 59 balls within the last, Sharma completed because the second highest run-scorer with 257 runs at a strike fee of over 156, together with game-turning half-centuries in opposition to Australia within the Tremendous Eight and England within the semifinal.

Sharma mentioned he would proceed to be accessible to play assessments and one-day internationals for India.

India’s final main event success was on the ODI World Cup it hosted in 2011. Since then they’ve endured various painful close to misses, with probably the most grueling being the 50-over last on residence soil in Ahmedabad to Australia in November.

Additionally they misplaced the World Check Championship last to the identical opponent at The Oval final summer season.

“It was very emotional, I wished this badly,” Sharma mentioned. “I used to be very determined for this in my life so I’m completely happy we crossed the road this time.”

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AP cricket: https://apnews.com/hub/cricket