South Africa fell just a few runs short of India’s total of 176-7, scoring only 169-8 in a nailbiting finale to cricket’s T20 World Cup in Bridgetown in Barbados.
It’s India’s second triumph in the competition, and its first since the inaugural T20 World Cup in 2007.
Kohli comes good at the last, announces T20 retirement
India’s star player Virat Kohli won the player-of-the match award, scoring a crucial 76 in the final after a difficult tournament, and announced his retirement from T20 cricket immediately after the win.
“This was my last T20 game playing for India,” 35-year-old Kohli said. “Time for the next generation to take the T20 game forward.”
Kohli had only tallied 75 runs in the previous seven games, well below expectations for India’s most dangerous batsman, but more than doubled his tournament tally on Saturday with 76 off just 59 deliveries.
Kohli hit six fours and a pair of sixes, and also notched a handy partnership of 74 runs with Axar Patel that laid the foundations for an Indian total that was just too high for the South Africans to match.
Kohli made his intentions clear in the very first over — hitting all three of the first balls of the match across the boundary on his way to taking 15 runs from the first six balls of the match, setting a new T20 final record in the process.
The “T20” format of cricket is a relatively new and much shorter, more all-action playing format for a sport that famously can take days to reach a resolution. It’s rapidly turning into arguably the sport’s most marketable format.
More to follow…
msh/ab (AP, Reuters)
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