'Unluckiest Captain Ever': Fans Flood Twitter as Cricketer Virat Kohli's T20I Captaincy Stint Ends

Kohli's dream of bringing India's 14-year wait for the T20 World Cup to an end fizzled out disappointingly on Monday when the team, which began the tournament as firm favourites, exited the prestigious event in Dubai after the first round. Although India did well to win their last three matches, losing to Pakistan and New Zealand cost them dearly.

With his captaincy coming to an abrupt end after the Indian team's unexpected departure from the International Cricket Council (ICC) T20 World Cup in the UAE, Virat Kohli's fans have descended on Twitter.

Although some cricket fans have praised him for bringing a new dimension to the national side, injecting a degree of intensity and aggression which had hitherto been lacking, others declared him the "unluckiest captain India has ever had" because of him stumbling at the last hurdle as skipper.

Together as one we set out to achieve our goal.Unfortunately we fell short and no one is more disappointed than us as a side.The support from all of you has been fantastic and we are grateful for it all.We will aim to come back stronger and put our best foot forward. Jai Hind🇮🇳🙏 pic.twitter.com/UMUQgInHrV

— Virat Kohli (@imVkohli) November 8, 2021

#ThankYouViratKohli With some much-deserved break and no pressure of captaincy, we look forward to seeing you back with scores and scores of centuries! https://t.co/rOhTrmdLXZ

— Wear a f'ing mask. Get vaccinated. (@wearamask99) November 9, 2021

Selfless from Virat Kohli, in his final match as T20I captain, there was an opportunity to bat and finish the game but given it to Suryakumar Yadav who is playing his first WC .
- #ViratKohli 🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻#ThankYouViratKohli #T20WorldCup pic.twitter.com/B5NGCTRE1n

— C 😎 (@BNnarendra014) November 9, 2021

#ThankYouViratKohli 🙏🏽 your service to Indian cricket as a captain will be remembered for a long time. The aggression , the spirit , and the class you carried as a captain is unparalleled. Thank you Virat Kohli @imVkohli
You are the best.
🇮🇳❤️ pic.twitter.com/fjvePFKya8

— Aaidan Swami (@AaidanSwami) November 9, 2021

Probably the unluckiest captian India has ever had💔 #ThankYouViratKohli
For being the leader who lead the team from the front
Will always feel sad that u haven't got the kind of end of Captaincy that u deserved💔💔 pic.twitter.com/Q3FDCn5eSP

— SHARUK ᴿᵃᵈʰᵉˢʰʸᵃᵐ💞 (@NMAHAMMADSHARUK) November 9, 2021

Kohli has led India in four ICC tournaments - the Champions Trophy in 2017, the One-Day International World Cup in 2019, the Test Championships in 2021 and the ongoing T20 World Cup.

India lost to New Zealand in the semifinals and the final respectively in the ODI World Cup and the Test Championships, and were beaten by Pakistan in the Champions Trophy final.

And even though Kohli's team ended the T20 World Cup with a comprehensive 9-wicket win over Scotland on Monday, his side's inability to win in the Middle East further extended the 33-year-old cricketer's drought in ICC events.

Although Kohli was disappointed after India failed to make it to the next stage of the tournament, he reiterated that he was immensely proud of the squad and what they had achieved as a unit in the past few years.

"It's been an honour, but things have to be kept in the right perspective. It's been six, seven years of intense cricket every time we take the field and it takes a lot out of you. It's been great fun, a great bunch of guys and we've really performed well as a team," he said.

"I know we have not gone far in this World Cup, but we have had some good results in T20 and enjoyed playing together. It's a game of margins, T20 cricket. You talk about two overs of cricket with intent in the first two games and things could have been different."

"We were not brave enough, as I said," the star batsman concluded.

Kohli made it clear in September that the T20 World Cup would be his last tournament as India's T20 skipper.

However, he will continue to lead the Indian cricket team in ODIs and Test matches.

The sport has three formats – Test matches which last five days, One-Day Internationals (ODIs) of 50 overs a side, and T20s (games of 20 overs per side).