‘It was a hard pill to swallow’ – Rohit Sharma on India’s 2019 World Cup exit

It’s been around 14 and half months since India’s exit from the 2019 World Cup in England and Wales. Yet, Rohit Sharma, Team India’s vice-captain in the limited-overs formats, has found it tough to deal with the defeat. After losing to only England in the league stage, Virat Kohli’s Men in Blue were deemed as one of the favourites to win the prestigious trophy.

However, things went haywire for them in the semis where New Zealand beat them. At the Old Trafford in Manchester, India lost the game despite half-centuries from Ravindra Jadeja and MS Dhoni, who retired from international cricket back in August 15.

Going the down the memory lane, the 33-year-old Rohit said India had the all the resources in the batting and bowling departments to emerge as the champions. Nevertheless, the Nagpur-born still dreams of winning World Cup for the national team, irrespective of the format.

I want to win World Cups: Rohit Sharma

“It was a hard pill to swallow and it wasn’t easy because of the team that we had and the cricket that we were playing in the entire tournament. In the lead-up to the WC, we were all in good form, we were also in good space mentally, we were enjoying each other’s company. Everything was going pretty well,” Rohit was quoted as saying to India Today.

“And one bad day in the office and we were out of the tournament. It’s very hard if you had to re-think about it. But again, the only thing that I wasn’t able to understand was despite having a team like that, we couldn’t go through. We had everything, we had good bowlers, batsmen.

“But then, life moves on, you have to move on, there was so much cricket that was coming up after that as well. But I want to win World Cups, that’s my dream, be it T20 or 50-overs,” he added.

In the mega event last year, Rohit was the leading run-scorer with 648 runs from nine matches at an average of 81. He also got five tons against Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, South Africa and England. In fact, he was the first batter to notch five tons in a single World Cup edition.