New Delhi: Indian cricket on Sunday savoured World Cup victory while also coming to terms with the T20 retirements of modern-day greats, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli. Both Rohit and Kohli called time on their T20 careers for India after the cricketing powerhouse edged South Africa to clinch its second T20 World Cup title in Barbados on Saturday. The two batting stalwarts have carried the dreams of a cricket-crazy nation for over 15 years and ended the shortest format at their peak.
Kohli's match-winning 76 earned him the player of the final award, and Rohit led the team from the front with three half-centuries in the tournament, in which India remained unbeaten. "It has been so amazing playing with them for so many years. We all will miss them but.
.. this is the best farewell we can give them," Hardik Pandya, Rohit's deputy in the tournament, said after the win.
Roger Binny, who was part of the 1983 World Cup-winning team and is now president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), termed the two stalwarts' exit a "great loss". He said it would be tough to replace them immediately, despite India's good pool of T20 players in the Indian Premier League. Kohli, 35, won his second World Cup crown after the 2011 ODI win under MS Dhoni, who also led India to title victory in T20's showpiece event in 2007 at the inaugural edition.
A rookie Rohit, now 37, was part of the first T20 triumph when India beat arch-rivals Pakistan in the final in Johannesburg. The two stalwart.
