‘Virat Kohli might take retirement after T20 World Cup in Australia’: After Afridi, Shoaib Akhtar’s stunning prediction

After a quiet two years, Virat Kohli finally ended his rough patch at the recently-concluded Asia Cup, a tournament where he also smashed the elusive 71st international ton of his career.

Kohli finished the tournament as the second-highest run-scorer, accumulating 276 runs from five matches, which included a century and two half-centuries.

Now with the T20 World Cup fast approaching, Kohli would be hoping to do the same or even better in Australia. The Men In Blue had one of their worst outings in the competition last year in UAE, where they failed to qualify for the semifinals after losing to New Zealand and Pakistan in the group stage. However, this time the unit, including Kohli, will look to make amends and win India their second T20 World Cup title after triumphant run under MS Dhoni in the inaugural edition in 2007..

While the talks are mostly buzzing around the World Cup, which gets underway from October 16, former Pakistan speedster Shoaib Akhtar has predicted Kohli might consider retirement from the shorter format after the showpiece event.

“Kohli might just take retirement after the T20 World Cup. He may do that to extend his longevity in the other formats. If I was him I would have looked at the larger picture and taken a call,” Akhtar said a LIVE session hosted by India.com.

Kohli has represented India in over 100 matches in all the three formats and if we just look at his T20I appearances, he has already played 104 games. Batting at an average of 51.94, Kohli has stacked 3584 runs in the shortest formats in international competitions.

Former Pakistan all-rounder Shahid Afridi, also Akhtar’s teammate, recently weighed in on the prospect of Kohli’s future retirement. He lauded Kohli for a stellar career and believes that when the time comes, he expects the star batter to go out on a high rather than being a pale shadow of his dominating self.