“Nobody expected it” – Paras Mhambrey on Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Ravindra Jadeja retiring from T20Is

Former India bowling coach Paras Mhambrey revealed that there was no prior indication that Virat Kohli, captain Rohit Sharma and Ravindra Jadeja would retire from T20Is. The trio announced their decisions after India won the 2024 T20 World Cup 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 this calibre retired after just one tournament.

Paras Mhambrey, who was the Indian team’s bowling coach from 2021 to 2024, said how much of a surprise it came even to the team management.

“I don’t think anyone expected that (the retirement announcements). If you had a conversation earlier, we would have known that this was coming. But none of them had that conversation. If they had a conversation, individually or privately, with someone like Rahul (Dravid), that’s something different, but not between the team or other individuals. So that was a bit surprising for us as well,” Mhambrey told Hindustan Times.

Rohit, 37, Kohli, 35, and Jadeja, 35, are at the end of their careers in international cricket and Mhambrey felt announcing his retirement from T20Is, on the high of winning the World Cup, was the perfect send-off.

“If you look at it from the players’ perspective, there can’t be a better ending for one format, right? We’re talking about people who have been part of the dressing for maybe over a decade, 12-13 years.

Virat was part of the 2011 World Cup. And it must have been really tough not to win a World Cup since 2011. He wanted it so badly. So when you go on a journey to achieve something that you have wanted for so many years, sometimes as a player you feel like that journey is over in that format and you really can’t get any better.“, said Mhambrey.

“After winning the T20 World Cup, especially the stage that their career is at… they are no longer young. Sometimes you have to choose. You have to decide which formats you are going to play and cut your cricket short to focus on a particular format because age is not on your side. The experience and the skills are there but still you have to be smart. And I think that’s one of the reasons why they did that, because they couldn’t have come on a bigger high than winning the World Cup.“, Mhambrey added.

Rohit retired from T20Is with the most runs (4231 in 159 matches) and most centuries to his name (5). Kohli took the time as the second highest run-getter with 4188 runs in 125 matches, while Jadeja scored 515 runs and took 54 wickets in 74 T20Is.