The 2011 World Cup and 2007 World T20-winning opener was a stalwart for his country for more than a decade and also won two Indian Premier League titles with the Kolkata Knight Riders.
In an emotional retirement announcement on his official Facebook page, Gambhir addressed the negativity and self-doubt which have affected his game in later years and said: “After more than 15 years of cricket for my country, I want to retire from playing this beautiful game.
“I’ve seen wishes come true – two World Cups, highest run-getter in the final of both of these games is the stuff dreams are made of. Somewhere on the top is being the number one Test team in the world.
“A trophy I’ll look at very fondly is the one I got for being awarded the ICC best Test batsman of the year in 2009. For a purist like me, it is a reward for somewhat knowing where my off stump was. I think someone up there was writing my script. But now it looks like he has run out of ink.”
The 37-year-old began his professional career in 1999-2000 and made his India debut in April 2003, in a one-day international against Bangladesh. His first Test came against Australia the following year.
He last represented his country in 2016, in a Test match against England in Rajkot, but continued to play domestically in all three formats for Delhi. His Test career ended with 4,154 runs at 41.95 including 22 fifties and nine hundreds. He added over 6,000 further runs in limited-overs internationals.
