Virat Kohli ends T20 career on a high as India wins World Cup

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (AP) — Right up to the Twenty20 World Cup final, there were question marks about whether India should persist with playing Virat Kohli.

One of the greatest cricketers India has ever produced just wasn't scoring.

He'd tallied 75 runs in seven games, including two ducks. India won every game but Kohli was reduced to a concerning afterthought, saved by the middle order and bowlers.

The humbling scores followed a spectacular Indian Premier League for Kohli, who set or extended tournament records in scoring 741 runs at an average of nearly 62.

Captain and fellow opener Rohit Sharma, despite their low-scoring partnerships at the World Cup, insisted throughout that he and Kohli were the first names on the team list.

His faith was repaid in the final against South Africa on Saturday, when Kohli led India's batting with 76 from 59 balls in a competitive total of 176-7. The bowlers brilliantly defended the total to win a thriller by seven runs and make India a world champion for the first time in 13 years.

“None of us doubted him,” Sharma said of Kohli, shortly before the skipper announced his own retirement from T20 internationals later Saturday.

“We know his quality. He has been at the top of his game for 15 years now. Big players will step up in big occasions and he played a crucial knock today. It was a team effort to get to that total but we knew we needed someone to bat time and he did that perfectly, using all his experience.”

After being named man of the match, Kohli said it was his last T20 international.

“One day you feel like you can't get a run, but one day things just click,” he said.

“I am so proud to get the runs for the team on the day it mattered most. The occasion prompted that change for me, I felt like it was now or never. We have wanted to lift a trophy for a long time. The occasion made me put my head down, respect the situation and play the innings that the team needed from me.”

Class prevails when it comes to Kohli. He's produced so often when it's mattered.

In the 2014 final in Dhaka, he led all scorers with 77 off 58, though India lost to Sri Lanka.

In the 2016 semifinal in Mumbai, he hit an unbeaten 89 off 47 in the loss to West Indies.

He finished as the T20 captain at the 2021 World Cup, and hit 50 off 40 in the 2022 semifinal loss to England in Adelaide.

After six T20 World Cups, he's the highest scorer in tournament history, just ahead of Sharma, but he's decided to finish his 14-year T20 career on a high than stay to the next World Cup in 2026 co-hosted by India and Sri Lanka. He'd be 37 by then.

“It is time for the new generation to come through for India,” Kohli said. "We have some amazing players coming through and they have to take this team forwards now.

“I wasn't feeling myself before today. I wasn't confident. So I am very grateful and humble right now. It has been difficult, so there are a lot of emotions. It hasn't quite sunk in for me yet. It's an amazing day, I am so thankful.”

AP cricket: https://apnews.com/hub/cricket

India's Virat Kohli bats during the ICC Men's T20 World Cup final cricket match between India and South Africa at Kensington Oval in Bridgetown, Barbados, Saturday, June 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

India's Virat Kohli plays a shot during the ICC Men's T20 World Cup final cricket match between India and South Africa at Kensington Oval in Bridgetown, Barbados, Saturday, June 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Ricardo Mazalan)

India's Virat Kohli bats during the ICC Men's T20 World Cup final cricket match between India and South Africa at Kensington Oval in Bridgetown, Barbados, Saturday, June 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

India's Virat Kohli celebrates after their win against South Africa in the ICC Men's T20 World Cup final cricket match at Kensington Oval in Bridgetown, Barbados, Saturday, June 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Ricardo Mazalan)

India's Virat Kohli, left, and captain Rohit Sharma pose with the winners trophy after defeating South Africa in the ICC Men's T20 World Cup final cricket match at Kensington Oval in Bridgetown, Barbados, Saturday, June 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Ricardo Mazalan)

India's Virat Kohli shares a laugh with teammates at the presentation ceremony after defeating South Africa in the ICC Men's T20 World Cup final cricket match at Kensington Oval in Bridgetown, Barbados, Saturday, June 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Ricardo Mazalan)

India's Virat Kohli carries the winners' trophy as he celebrates after India won the ICC Men's T20 World Cup final cricket match against South Africa at Kensington Oval in Bridgetown, Barbados, Saturday, June 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court's ruling Monday in former President Donald Trump's 2020 election interference case makes it all but certain that the Republican will not face trial in Washington ahead of the November election.

The Supreme Court did not dismiss — as Trump had wanted — the indictment alleging he illegally schemed to cling to power after he lost to President Joe Biden. But the ruling still amounts to a major victory for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, whose legal strategy has focused on delaying the proceedings until after the election.

Trump posted in all capital letters on his social media network shortly after the decision was released: “BIG WIN FOR OUR CONSTITUTION AND DEMOCRACY. PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN!”

The timing of the trial matters because if Trump defeats Biden, he could appoint an attorney general who would seek the dismissal of this case and the other federal prosecutions he faces. Or Trump could potentially order a pardon for himself.

Here's a look at the ruling and what comes next:

In a 6-3 ruling, the justices said that former presidents are shielded from prosecution for actions that fell within their official job duties, but they do not have immunity for unofficial acts.

The ruling means that special counsel Jack Smith cannot proceed with significant allegations in the indictment — or must at least defend their use in future proceedings before the trial judge.

The justices, for instance, wiped out Smith’s use of allegations that Trump tried to use the investigative power of the Justice Department to undo the election results even though officials told him they had uncovered no evidence of pervasive fraud.

The justices sent the case back to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who must now “carefully analyze” whether other allegations involve official conduct for which the president would be immune from prosecution.

Among the issues for further analysis is Trump’s relentless badgering of then-Vice President Mike Pence to not certify the electoral votes on Jan. 6, 2021. The justices said it was “ultimately the Government’s burden to rebut the presumption of immunity” in Trump’s interactions with Pence, and sent the question back to Chutkan.

The order also directed additional analysis on the various posts on X, then known as Twitter, that Trump made — as well as a speech he delivered to supporters — in the run-up to the riot at the U.S. Capitol. Determining whether that communication represents official versus unofficial acts, the justices said, “may depend on the content and context of each" and thus needs more scrutiny.

The justices required fresh fact-finding on one of the more stunning allegations in the indictment — that Trump had participated in a scheme orchestrated by allies to enlist fake electors in battleground states won by Democrat Joe Biden who would falsely attest that Trump had won in those states.

The Trump team had argued that the selection of alternate electors was in keeping with Trump’s presidential interest in the integrity and administration of the federal elections and cited as precedent an episode he said took place in the disputed election in 1876.

The Smith team, by contrast, portrayed the fake elector scheme as a purely private action that implicated no presidential duty.

The conservative justices in their majority opinion didn’t answer the question as to which side was right, instead saying that “determining whose characterization may be correct, and with respect to which conduct, requires a close analysis of the indictment’s extensive and interrelated allegations.”

Unlike Trump’s interactions with the Justice Department, the justices said, “this alleged conduct cannot be neatly categorized as falling within a particular Presidential function. The necessary analysis is instead fact specific, requiring assessment of numerous alleged interactions with a wide variety of state officials and private persons.”

The three liberal justices — Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson — sharply criticized the majority’s opinion in scathing dissents. Sotomayor gave a dramatic speech as she read her dissent from the bench, at times shaking her head and gritting her teeth as she said the conservative majority wrongly insulated the U.S. president as “a king above the law.”

“Ironic isn’t it? The man in charge of enforcing laws can now just break them," Sotomayor said.

The dissenting justices said the majority decision makes presidents immune from prosecution for acts such as ordering Navy seals to assassinate a political rival, organizing a military coup to hold onto power or accepting a bribe in exchange for a pardon.

“Even if these nightmare scenarios never play out, and I pray they never do, the damage has been done. The relationship between the President and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably. In every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law,” Sotomayor wrote.

In a separate dissenting opinion, Jackson said the majority’s ruling “breaks new and dangerous ground.”

“Stated simply: The Court has now declared for the first time in history that the most powerful official in the United States can (under circumstances yet to be fully determined) become a law unto himself,” Jackson wrote.

The majority opinion accused the liberal justices of “fear mongering” and striking a “tone of chilling doom that is wholly disproportionate to what the court actually does today.”

The case will now go back to Chutkan, who would oversee the trial.

The trial was supposed to have begun in March, but the case has been on hold since December to allow Trump to pursue his appeal. Chutkan had indicated at that time she would likely give the two sides at least three months to get ready for trial once the case returns to her court.

That had left the door open to the case potentially going to trial before the election if the Supreme Court — like the lower courts — had ruled that Trump was not immune from prosecution.

But the Supreme Court's ruling that Chutkan must conduct further analysis is expected tie the case up for months with legal wrangling over whether the actions in the indictment were official or unofficial.

Trump was convicted in May of 34 felony counts in his hush money trial in New York and is scheduled to be sentenced on July 11. The falsifying business records charges are punishable by up to four years behind bars, but there's no guarantee Trump will get prison time. Other possibilities include fines or probation.

It seems almost certain that Trump's two other criminal cases will not go to trial before the election.

An appeals court recently halted Trump's Georgia 2020 election interference case while it reviews the lower court judge’s ruling allowing Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to remain on the case. No trial date had been set in that case.

Trump was supposed to stand trial starting in May in the other case brought by Smith, o ver classified documents found at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate after he left the White House. But U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon canceled the trial date as the case got bogged down with legal issues. She has yet to schedule a new one.

Last week, Cannon set the stage further delays by agreeing to revisit a ruling by another judge that permitted crucial evidence related to allegations of obstruction of justice by Trump to be introduced into the case.

One of the arguments Cannon has entertained — that Smith was illegally appointed and that the case should be dismissed — got little traction with the Supreme Court.

A separate concurrence from Justice Clarence Thomas concluded that Smith's appointment was improper, but no other justice signed onto that.

Associated Press reporters Michelle L. Price in New York and Stephen Groves in Washington contributed.

The Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, June 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

FILE - Members of the Supreme Court sit for a group portrait in Washington, Oct. 7, 2022. Bottom row, from left, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Justice Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Samuel Alito and Justice Elena Kagan. Top row, from left, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, Justice Neil Gorsuch, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. The Supreme Court justices will take the bench Monday, July 1, 2024, to release their last few opinions of the term, including their most closely watched case: whether former President Donald Trump has immunity from criminal prosecution. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)