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It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
Just because of the desperation with which he coveted a world title, Rohit Sharma placed this T20 World Cup win as the greatest time of his career, the greatest achievement. “This has to be the greatest time, I can say that,” Rohit said at the press conference after the match. “It’s only because how desperately I wanted to win this. So, all the runs, all the runs that I’ve scored in all these years, I think it does matter, but I’m not big on stats and all of that. I think winning games for India, winning trophies for India, that is what I look forward to all the time. And having this now right beside me probably has to be, I don’t know, honestly, I don’t know if it’s the greatest or what but it is definitely one of the greatest, I can say that.”
Rohit spoke of the desperation again when asked to describe his mental state when he sunk onto the ground and celebrated the win. “I wanted this badly,” he said. “It’s very hard to put it in words because that moment, I don’t want to say what I was thinking and what was going in my mind, but it was a very emotional moment personally for me.
“I wish I could capture that moment myself but not really, you can’t do that but I will always remember that. Yeah, those are the moments you wait for and then you don’t plan these things, it just happens because you’re so desperate for certain things in life and I was very desperate for this in my life. So happy that we eventually crossed the line this time.”
In the absence of a clear transition plan, Rohit and coach Rahul Dravid agreed to give it another shot. Rohit had high praise for Dravid. “More than any one of us, I think he deserved that trophy,” Rohit said. “What he has done for Indian cricket for the past 20-25 years, I think this was the only thing that was missing in his cabinet. I am very happy from all of us on behalf of the entire team that we could actually do this for him. You saw how proud he was and how excited he was.
“He’s done so much for Indian cricket when he played. Over the last three years, he has worked hard with this team. He has had to suppress his instincts on many an occasion because it is not that easy for the boys to match his wavelength. So Rahul bhai suppressed himself. He learnt what the boys wanted. He prioritised that.
“For three years he has provided the boys role clarity. The boys who are not with the team, he has stayed in touch with them: keep telling him what is up with the team, when they can come ack, what their role will be when they come back. Rahul is a studious person. He was the first one to take care of this when he came: we have to tell the boys what we want from them.”