It has been a mixed year for the Indian cricket team. While they've done well largely, the side has faltered at the crucial stage of key ICC events. The team reached the finals of the ICC Men's World Test Championship in June, before losing to Australia at The Oval. The same opponent then beat them in the finals of the Cricket World Cup.

The latter defeat was a particularly excruciating one for Rohit's men. The Men in Blue had played flawless cricket right to the final, but stumbled at the final hurdle.

Speaking to reporters ahead of the first Test against South Africa, Rohit stated that the loss was a tough one to digest.

“Up until that final, the way we played. You expect to go an inch further as well. But unfortunately, we couldn’t do it, that was the hard part for us. Because honestly, all these years, we worked really hard for this. And then you saw how we managed to play the first 10 games. And then the finals [happened].

“Obviously, there are certain things we didn’t do well in the final, that cost us the game. But until then, we couldn’t point out many things that we didn’t do this right or that right.”

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However, Rohit tried to look at the bigger picture after the loss, and motivated himself to get back to the game.

“But it is hard [to recover] from a loss like that,” Rohit said. “There’s so much happening in life, there’s so much cricket. You've got to find that strength to move on from that. It takes time, it took time for me to move on from that but you got to move forward.

“Honestly, I said it also that we got a lot of encouragement from the outside world after that final as well. And that motivated me personally to make sure that I get up and start doing my job again.

“I’m batting as well as I could, whatever is in front of me, I’ll look to play.”

While Rohit didn't want to compare the upcoming South Africa series with the World Cup, he nevertheless viewed the series as an important one for his side.

“Obviously it will be a big thing if we win a series here. I don’t know, if we win here if this win will be a soothing balm for the World Cup loss. Because a world cup is a world cup. It is tough to compare it with this series.

“But this series in itself is quite big. This has a very rich history to it. If we can achieve it, we’ll feel great. The boys will feel great, because we’ve worked so hard, we need something in return. We want something big. And everyone is desperate. It's not just one or two or the senior players, but everyone is desperate for a win. Boys want to do it, want to bring glory for the country. I hope we can do well in this series. We have all the tools to do well in the series.”

The first Test between the two sides kicks off in Centurion on the Boxing Day.