India captain Rohit Sharma made a shocking statement after announcing his retirement from T20Is following the 2024 T20 World Cup victory. He said that he did not want to hang up his boots but the situation was like that and he had to take the decision.
India captain Rohit Sharma has ended his career in the shortest format of the game after the team lifted the 2024 T20 World Cup. The Men in Blue defeated South Africa in the final by 7 runs and lifted their second T20 World Cup, having won the title in the inaugural edition in 2007 under MS Dhoni.
Rohit Sharma, who has been a part of the Indian T20I set-up since 2007, gave his all at the 2024 T20 World Cup and all his hard work paid off as India ended their title drought. India won the Champions Trophy in 2013 and after that, they lost all the ICC events.
When India won the tournament, Rohit Sharma announced that he would be retiring from T20Is and according to him, it was the right time to go and end his career. The Indian captain, during the press conference in the hall, stated that he loved every moment of it. He explained it thus:
“I enjoyed it from the moment I started playing this format. There is no better time to say goodbye to this format. I enjoyed every moment of it. This is what I wanted: I wanted to win the cup.”
But after that, in a drastic turn of events, during the interaction with reporters, Rohit Sharma made a shocking statement and stated that he did not want to retire but the situation forced him. However, he again mentioned that it was the right time to say goodbye. He explained:
“I didn’t think I would retire from T20I but the situation was such… I thought it was the perfect situation for me. Nothing better than winning the cup and saying goodbye.”
Rohit Sharma leads from the front in the 2024 T20 World Cup
India captain Rohit Sharma was the best batsman for his team at the 2024 T20 World Cup. He led from the front and made sure to take his team to winning totals in the tournament. He batted aggressively at the top and made sure to give his team brutal starts.
Rohit Sharma scored 257 runs in 8 matches at a strike rate of 156.70. He also scored three fifties in the tournament, one of them in the semi-final against England. As a leader, he also scored almost all the points and made sure to lead his team to glory.
Overall, in T20Is, Rohit Sharma has been an incredible servant for his team. He finished his career as the all-time run leader with 4,231 runs. The captain finished with five hundreds, the most by a batsman in T20I cricket. He also hit 32 fifties and had a career strike rate of 140.