India ended an 11-year ICC trophy drought with a seven-run victory over South Africa in the final of the T20 World Cup in Barbados on June 29.
In a video message shared on Sunday, Shah confirmed Rohit as the captain for the ongoing World Test Championship (WTC) 2023-25 cycle and the ICC Champions Trophy scheduled for 2025.
“I am confident that under the captaincy of Rohit Sharma, we will win the WTC final and the Champions Trophy,” Shah said.
“I want to congratulate Team India for this historic win. I want to dedicate this triumph to skipper Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, (outgoing) head coach Rahul Dravid and Ravindra Jadeja. This was our third final in the last one year. We lost (to Australia, at the Oval) in June 2023. In November 2023, we scored 10 wins (in the ODI World Cup), and won the hearts of the people, but couldn’t win the World Cup (India lost to Australia in the final),” Shah said.
“I had said in Rajkot (on February 14 this year) that in June 2024 that we will win the hearts of the people, and also the T20 World Cup (in USA & West Indies), and plant the tri-colour (in Barbados). And our captain did it. In this win, the last five overs (of the South African innings) played a big role. For this contribution, I want to thank Suryakumar Yadav (took a great catch to dismiss David Miller at long-off), (Jasprit) Bumrah (bowled a game-changing over), Arshdeep Singh (bowled an economical second-last over) and Hardik Pandya (bowled the last over of the match). Now, our next target is the WTC final and the Champions Trophy,” Shah further said.
Rohit had announced his retirement from T20 internationals after leading the team to their second World Cup victory in the shortest format, describing it as the perfect time to bid adieu.
Rohit joined his longtime teammate Virat Kohli, who also retired from T20Is minutes after India won the final.
“This was also my last game. There couldn’t have been a better time to say goodbye. I desperately wanted this trophy. It’s hard to put into words. This is what I wanted, and it happened. I was very determined to achieve this in my life. I’m happy that we crossed the line this time,” Rohit had expressed after India’s triumph in the final.
Rohit concluded his T20I career with 4,231 runs from 159 matches, including five centuries and 32 fifties.
