An emotional Kohli could be seen in tears before he gathered himself to talk to his wife, Anushka Sharma, and his kids — daughter Vamika and son Akaay.
Kohli’s knock of 76 off 59 balls, his best of the tournament and the only half-century, played a key role in India’s win and made the moment even more special as he was being criticized for his continued failure in the group stage, ‘Super 8s’ and in the semifinal against England.
But the batting legend put all that behind him in the match that mattered the most and won the country its second T20 World Cup after a gap of 17 years. And Kohli shared all his emotions with his family on a video call.
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After his tears at the start of the video call settled down, Kohli the dad could be seen gesturing and laughing with his kids.
In another pivotal moment after the match, Kohli announced his retirement from T20Is; and a similar announcement from skipper Rohit Sharma followed soon after.
In his 125-match T20I career, Kohli scored 4188 runs at an average of 48.7 and a strike rate of 137.04, including 38 fifties and one hundred with a best of 122. He also took four wickets.
On Saturday, in the last and the most important T20I of his career, Kohli’s half-century helped the team reach 176 for 7, after which Hardik Pandya (3 for 20) led India’s bowling attack with assistance from Jasprit Bumrah (2 for 18) and Arshdeep Singh (2 for 20) to limit South Africa to 169 for 8 in the match that went down the wire.
The match will also be remembered for Suryakumar Yadav’s stupendous game-changing catch on the boundary ropes to dismiss Proteas’ last hope David Miller (21 off 17 balls) after Heinrich Klassen’s 27-ball 52 had set the chase up for South Africa.