When Rohit Sharma Opened Up About His Repeated Knockout Failures

image-lr4kua63Rohit Sharma (Twitter)

When he donned the captaincy hat for India, Rohit Sharma would've wished to revive his team's fortunes in major knock-out matches at ICC events. However, the veteran opener has failed on three big occasions to end the country's longstanding drought of a silverware. 

It was under the experienced Mumbaikar that India lost the semifinal of the 2022 T20 World Cup in Australia, the summit clash of the 2021-23 World Test Championship (WTC) in June and recently, the worst and most painstaking of the lot, the final of the ICC World Cup 2023 in Ahmedabad.

With the stakes so high, India's repeated failure to cross the last hurdle in the past decade since winning the 2013 Champions Trophy has tended to paint the image of the side, with naysayers now beginning to call Team India chokers and underachievers of world cricket. 

Rohit, however, personally doesn't buy this discourse and doesn't think one knock-out game shall define the reputations and legacy of cricketers and teams. As he had spoken about before the England semifinal of the T20 World Cup in Australia in November 2022. 

When Rohit Opened Up On Knock-Out Fortunes 

Rohit was speaking in defence of his team as well as his personal failures at ICC knock-out matches. The white-ball great made just 29 in the final of the 2014 T20 World Cup and then a mere 34 in the semifinal of the ICC World Cup 2015 in Sydney. 

The experienced head's following scores in big must-win matches were 43, 0 and 1 made in the 2016 T20 World Cup semifinal loss, the 2017 Champions Trophy final defeat and the 2019 World Cup semifinal battering at the hands of New Zealand. 

"Not just me, but all the players, what they've done in their entire career, one knockout game doesn't define them," Rohit had told the press. 

"The entire year you work so hard to get where you want to and do well in whichever format you play. So that one particular game is not going to decide that."

"It's important to understand that knockout games are important and it gives you immense confidence, if you do well. But we do not forget what has happened in the past, what the players have done in the past."

"All the performances that they've put in for the team over the years, that one game cannot dictate that (narrative)," he added.

As it happened, though, Rohit's struggles in the marquee ICC knock-out matches continued as he played a costly knock of just 27 off 28 deliveries at the Adelaide Oval versus England.