‘Took Time for Me to Come Out of it’: Rohit Opens Up for the First Time Since World Cup Final Loss

The Indian skipper Rohit Sharma is back to lead the side once again as India takes on South Africa in a two-match Test series which begins on December 26 at the SuperSport Park Cricket Stadium in Centurion. The skipper will be hoping to topple the Proteas’ long-standing record of being undefeated at home against India in the red-ball format.

Speaking to the media ahead of the Boxing Day Test, the Indian skipper had talked about how he had to move on after the crushing World Cup finals loss at Ahmedabad.

He also opened up on the reactions from the fans, “We got a lot of encouragement from the outside world after that final and that motivated me personally to make sure I get up and start doing my job again.”

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Despite coming up short in the finals, the side led by Rohit managed to remain undefeated throughout the tournament. He said, “Up until that final, the way we played, you expect to go an inch further. But unfortunately, we couldn’t do it. That was the hard part for us, all of us to take that. Honestly, all these years, we’ve worked hard for all of this.”

But the skipper also added that there were certain things that his side did not do well in the big finale. He added, You saw how we managed to play the first 10 games, and then the finals. Obviously, you know, there are certain things that we didn’t do well in the finals, which obviously cost us the game. But up until then, I thought there were not many things we could point out that we didn’t do this right.”

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Rohit also revealed that it had taken him some to get back up after the loss. He said,” But obviously from a loss like that, it is hard. But there’s so much happening in life. There’s so much cricket happening. You’ve got to find that strength to move on from that. It takes time. It took time for me as well to come out of that. But you know, you got to look forward.”

India’s Squad: Rohit Sharma (C), Shubman Gill, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Abhimanyu Easwaran, KL Rahul (wk), Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Shardul Thakur, Mohd. Siraj, Mukesh Kumar, Jasprit Bumrah (VC), Prasidh Krishna, KS Bharat (wk).