India batsman Virender Sehwag has formally retired from international cricket and Indian Premier League, officially.
On Tuesday, his 37th birthday, Sehwag made the announcement via Twitter, with a crisp message that said he would no longer play the international cricket and IPL.
Sehwag, famous for his hand-eye co-ordination and giving the ball a solid whack, did not lose his sense of humour while announcing his retirement. He joked about the advance news of his retirement.
On Monday, Sehwag had revealed he would be participating in the Masters Champions League, a UAE-based Twenty20 tournament that requires its participants to have retired from all international formats, and said a formal retirement announcement would follow soon.
He indicated that he would continue playing for Haryana till the end of the Ranji Trophy season.
"God has been kind and I have done what I wanted to do - on the field and in my life and I had decided sometime back that I will retire on my 37th birthday," Sehwag said in a statement. "So, while I spend the day with my family, I hereby announce my retirement from all forms of international cricket and the Indian Premier League.
Sehwag is widely considered one of India's greatest opening batsmen, and he revolutionised the art of batting against the new ball in Test cricket with his aggressive approach, scoring at a strike rate of over 80 in the longest format.
He last played a Test match in March 2013 against Australia at Hyderabad. Over the next couple of years, with dwindling reflexes and luck, Sehwag was overtaken by consistently-performing batsmen like Shikhar Dhawan and Murali Vijay.
Sehwag played 104 Tests, 251 ODIs and 19 T20Is, scoring over 17000 international runs and picking up 136 wickets with his offspin.
His greatest moments came in Test cricket, where he made 23 hundreds including the only two triple-centuries by any Indian batsman, while his ODI achievements included the format's second double-hundred.
He was part of India's victorious squads in the 2007 World T20 and the 2011 World Cup.