After the final, it was very hard to get back – Rohit Sharma

Team India put up a valiant showdown in the recently concluded World Cup 2023, where they finished as the runners-up, losing out to Australia in the final. The Indian batters had it difficult on the day of the final as they could only rack up 240 runs, a target which was chased down in a heartbeat by the Aussies despite a shaky start.

Indian captain Rohit Sharma, close to a month after the final, opened up on the dejection of the loss through a post on social media uploaded on the ‘TeamRo’ page. On the video, he dropped an important message and finally let all those pent-up emotions from that cursed Sunday evening out.

Rohit said, “I had no idea how to come back from this. The first few days I didn't know what to do. You know, my family, my friends, kept me going, kept things pretty light around me, which was quite helpful.”

He continued, “It wasn't easy to digest, but life moves on. You have to move on in life. But, honestly, it was tough. It was not so easy to just move on. I have always grown up watching the 50-over World Cup, and to me that was the ultimate prize. We have worked all these years for that World Cup… and it is disappointing, right? If you don't get through it, and you don't get what you want, what you've been looking for all this while, what you were dreaming of, you get disappointed, and you get frustrated as well at times."

He further added, “I thought we did everything we could from our side. If someone will ask me, what went wrong… because we won ten games, and in those ten games, yes, we made mistakes, but that mistake happens in every game that you play. You cannot have a perfect game. You can have a near-perfect game. But you cannot have a perfect game. If I look on the other side of it, I'm really proud of the team as well. Because how we played was simply outstanding. You don't get to perform like that every World Cup. And I am pretty sure I am, at least, how we played up until that final, it would have given people a lot of joy, a lot of pride watching the team play."

The Indian captain further stated, “After the final, it was very hard to get back and start moving on, which is why I decided that I need to go somewhere and just get my mind out of this. But then, wherever I was, I realised that people were coming up to me and they were appreciating everyone's effort, how well we played. I feel for all of them. They all, along with us, were dreaming of lifting that World Cup, along with us.”

Stating more on this topic, Rohit said, “Everywhere we went during this entire World Cup campaign, there was so much support from everyone, who came to the stadium firstly, and people who were watching it from home as well. I want to appreciate what the people have done for us, in that one-and-a-half months. But again, if I think more and more about that I feel quite disappointed that we were not able to go all the way.”

He concluded by saying, “For me to see, you know, people coming up to me, telling me that they were proud of the team, you know made me feel really good to a certain extent. And along with them, I was healing as well. I felt, okay these are the kind of things you want to hear. When you meet people, when they understand what the player must be going through and when they know these kind of things… and not to bring out that frustration, that anger, it means a lot for us, for me definitely it meant a lot because there was no anger, it was just pure love from people that I met and it was wonderful to see that. So it gives you motivation to get back and start working again and look for another ultimate prize."