Former India bowling coach Paras Mhambrey revealed that there was no prior inkling that Virat Kohli, captain Rohit Sharma, and Ravindra Jadeja would retire from T20Is. The trio announced their decisions after India won the T20 World Cup 2024 in June this year.
Virat Kohli announced his decision to retire from T20Is while collecting his Player of the Final award, while Rohit Sharma did the same during the post-match press conference. All-rounder Ravindra Jadeja announced his retirement on social media a day later.
Never before in Indian cricket have three cricketers of such stature called it quits after just one tournament.
Meanwhile, Paras Mhambrey, who was the bowling coach of the Indian team from 2021-2024, revealed how it came as a surprise even to the team management.
"I think no one was expecting that (the retirement announcements). If you had any conversation earlier, we would have known this would be coming. But none of them had this conversation. If, individually or privately, they had a conversation with someone like Rahul (Dravid), that's a different thing, but not amongst the team or other individuals. So that was a little surprising for us as well,” Mhambrey told Hindustan Times.
Rohit, 37, Kohli, 35, and Jadeja, 35 are at the fag end of their careers in international cricket and Mhambrey felt that announcing retirement from T20Is on a high of winning the World Cup was the perfect farewell.
"If you look at it from the players' perspective, there can't be a better end to one format, right? We are talking about people who have been part of the dressing for maybe more than a decade, 12-13 years.
Virat was a part of the 2011 World Cup. And not to win a World Cup since 2011 must have been big. He wanted that badly. So obviously, when you go through a journey to achieve something you wanted so badly for years, sometimes as a player, you feel that journey is complete in that format and that you really can't get better,” Mhambrey said.
"After winning the T20 World Cup, especially the stage that their careers are in... they're no longer young. You've got to sometimes choose. You have to decide what formats you're going to play and cut down the cricket to focus on a particular format because age is not on your side. The experience and skills are there, but still, you've got to be smart. And I think that's one of the reasons they must have done that because they couldn't go on a bigger high than winning the World Cup," Mhambrey added.
Rohit retired from T20Is with the most runs (4231 in 159 games) and the most centuries to his name (5). Kohli called time as the second-highest run-getter with 4188 runs in 125 matches, while Jadeja scored 515 runs and picked 54 wickets in 74 T20Is.
