25 December,2023 08:09 PM IST | Johannesburg | mid-day online correspondent
Rohit Sharma (Pic: AFP)
India captain Rohit Sharma can leave everyone in peals of laughter with his comments, while himself maintaining a poker face. Before the press conference started here on Monday, he smiled and told everyone, "No questions on IPL. Only on Indian cricket team."
Someone pushed his luck and enquired, "it's a press meet, we can ask." Rohit pointed to the BCCI logo on his crest to signal it's a board-organised press meet. He knew he would be probed about his white-ball future ahead of the T20 World Cup.
Where does Rohit the batter see himself in the coming two years?
"I will play whatever cricket is there in front of me," he said in a loaded answer one can interpret the way one wants to.
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"Watching Tilak, Abhishek, Samson score runs, must be pleasing for Virat, Rohit"
The next question was more direct? "Do you seniors, you, Virat (Kohli) feel desperation to play T20 World Cup?"
"Desperation cricket khelne ke liye sabko hai (We are all desperate to play cricket). Everyone wants to do well whatever chances they get," he said.
And, then, he let everyone know what they were trying to extract from him.
"I know what you are trying to ask. You will get an answer, you will, for certain," said Rohit as he tried to suppress his grin.
Also Read: Silence is ânot' golden
On a serious note, he admitted that the World Cup final was a bitter pill to swallow for everyone in the team.
"The World Cup until the final the way we played, you expect to go an inch further. Unfortunately, we couldn't do it and that was the hard part, take that, honestly we have all these years worked hard for it, and you saw how we managed to play the first 10 games and the final," he said.
"Obviously, we didn't do certain things well in the final and that cost us the match, there were not many things we could point out that we didn't do this right or we didn't do that right," said Rohit, sounding practical in his thought process.
Just like he had said in an Instagram video, Rohit felt the love of the fans had got him back to playing cricket after the loss to Australia in the final.
"It's hard (to overcome) from a loss like that, but there's so much happening in life and there's so much cricket happening, move on from that (World Cup loss), it took time to come out from that and you got to look forward," he added.
"Honestly, I got a lot of messages from the outside world as well and that motivated me personally to get up and start doing my job again," he concluded.
(With agency inputs)
