‘I had no idea how to come back from this. The first few days I didn’t know what to do’

New Delhi: Rohit Sharma said that it took a while for him to move on from the disappointment of not winning the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup final but the empathetic reaction from fans he has met has helped him heal.
Rohit, speaking on the official Instagram account run by his team, said that he found it hard to digest the fact that his team fell short of winning what he felt was the ultimate prize in cricket.
“I had no idea how to come back from this. The first few days I didn’t know what to do. My family, and my friends kept me going. kept things pretty light around me, which was quite helpful. It wasn’t easy to digest, but life moves on. Honestly, it was tough,” said the Indian captain.
India won 10 matches on the trot, and most of them rather comprehensively, before eventually falling short against Australia in the final played on 19 November at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad. The brand of cricket that India played during the tournament was impressive to see but Pat Cummins and Co got the better of them on the day when it mattered the most.
“I thought we did everything we could from our side. If someone asked me what went wrong? Because we won 10 games. And in those 10 games, yes, we made mistakes, but that 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 am proud of the team as well, because how we played was simply outstanding. You don’t get to perform like that every World Cup, you know. And I’m pretty sure at least how we played at least up until that finals, it would have given people a lot of joy, a lot of pride watching the team play,” Rohit said.
The Indian captain set an aggressive tone for the side when opening the batting, opting for going hard in the first powerplay pretty much all through the tournament. That laid the platform for the likes of Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, and Shreyas Iyer to take India to match-winning scores.
Rohit said that he wanted to take a break after the World Cup to clear his head but it has been pleasing to see how the fans have reacted to the defeat, feeling pride at the winning run his team put together.
“After that 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,” the 36-year-old said. “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 right because they, along with us, were dreaming of lifting that World Cup. Everywhere we went during this entire World Cup campaign, there was so much support from everyone you know who came to the stadium firstly, and then people who were watching it from home as well. I want to appreciate what people have done for us in that one and a half months. But again, if I think more and more about that, I just feel quite disappointed that we were not able to go through all the way.”
Rohit, who was not selected for the 2011 World Cup and has spoken about how big a turning point it was for his career, said that it was disappointing to come this close to lifting the trophy.
“I’ve always grown up watching 50-over World Cup. And to me, that was, you know, the ultimate prize, so we’ve worked all these years, you know, for that. And it is disappointing, right? If you don’t get through it, and you don’t get what you want, what you have been looking for all this while, what you were dreaming of… you get disappointed and you get frustrated as well at times,” he said.
But people coming up to him to tell they were very proud of the team made him feel good to a certain extent, the Mumbaikar said. “And along with them, I was healing as well.”
While he has opted for a break during the ongoing white-ball leg of the South Africa tour, it is not yet clear if Rohit will lead India at next year’s T20 World Cup, in a format that he has not played in since the last edition in Australia.
“Because I felt ‘okay, you know, this is the kind of thing that you want to hear. When you meet people, when they understand what the player must be going through, and when they know these kinds of things, and not to bring out that frustration, that anger… it means a lot. For me, definitely, it meant a lot because there was no anger. It was just pure love from the people that I met. And it was wonderful to see that. So you know it gives you the motivation to get back and start working again and look for another ultimate prize,” he signed off.
Agencies

KR Desk