India win the T20 World Cup  as they hold off South Africa by seven runs after posting highest ever total in a final... before Virat Kohli announces his T20 international retirement

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 India lifted their first World Cup in 13 years after a choke for the ages from South Africa at Bridgetown.

Needing an apparently unloseable 26 off four overs with six wickets in hand, with Heinrich Klaasen on the march, they somehow collapsed to a seven-run defeat. The result left India’s fans at Kensington Oval delirious, and the South African players incredulous, with David Miller - caught on the boundary in the last over - in tears.

The result was a triumph for India’s seamers, who preyed on the South Africans’ long history of bottling the big games. After the outstanding Jasprit Bumrah had conceded only four singles in the 16th over, Hardik Pandya had Klaasen - who had just completed a 23-ball half-century - edging a big drive from the first delivery of the 17th.

That over, too, cost only four, before Bumrah returned to bowl Marco Jansen in the 18th, and give away just two singles. Evidence that South Africa had stopped thinking clearly came when tailender Keshav Maharaj took a single off the last ball of the over, with the big-hitting Miller waiting to pounce at the other end.

When Arshdeep Singh’s 19th cost just four, South Africa needed 16 off the last, only for Miller to be brilliantly on the long-off boundary by Suryakumar Yadav off Pandya. As rain began to fall, their tail couldn’t come close.

India have won the T20 World Cup for the first time since 2007 after beating South Africa

Suryakumar Yadav helped clinch the victory with an incredible catch to dismiss David Miller

He nearly lost control of ball as he went for the catch but was able to keep it at the second time of asking

Yadav wheels away in celebration with a catch that will be seen as one of the best ever

Klaasen posted a half-century in just 23 balls - turning the match in South Africa's favour

Jasprit Bumrah's bowling made the difference as he helped India take the win by seven runs

India’s triumph - their first at a T20 World Cup since the inaugural tournament back in 2007 - meant that the slowest fifty of Virat Kohli’s career, from 48 balls, went unpunished, even if he sped up towards the end with 26 from his last 11 deliveries. 

He later announced his retirement from T20 internationals.

'This was my last T20 game playing for India,' Kohli said following India's seven-run victory at Kensington Oval.

'Time for the next generation to take the T20 game forward.'

But as Quinton de Kock, Tristan Stubbs and Klaasen, who launched five sixes, tucked into India’s spinners, Kohli’s innings looked as if it had cost India the match. Then came Bumrah and Pandya - and an old South African habit that refuses to die.

Miller (left) and Klaasen (right) celebrate scoring runs they chased India's total

India posted a score to beat of 176-7 - the highest total ever recorded in a T20 World Cup final 

Virat Kohli played a huge part in India's victory and he announced his retirement from T20 internationals after the match

Kohli scored 76 with 59 balls while Axar Patel (pictured) supported with 47 from 31

Arshdeep Singh got two wickets from two average deliveries to take out Aiden Markram and Quinton de Kock