India, Dec. 22 -- The medals, the microphones, the post-match handshakes, they all blur after a World Cup final loss. What stays sharp is the quiet that follows. When your body is still in cricket mode, but your mind has already crashed.

Rohit Sharma's account of that aftermath isn't a generic: "We'll come back" stronger" script. It is a captain describing what it feels like when a two-year mission ends in a single, unbearable evening.

While speaking at an event, Rohit Sharma said, "Everybody was disappointed, and we just couldn't believe what had happened. It was a very tough time for me personally because I had put everything into that World Cup, not just two or three months before it, but ever since I took over the captaincy in 2022....