India played fantastically well in CWC 2023: Pakistan's Shaheen Afridi lauds hosts despite loss in final

India and Australia locked horns in the ODI World Cup 2023 final where Rohit Sharma & Co. lost by six wickets after being asked to bat first and managing only 240 in 50 overs, in Ahmedabad. In reply, Travis Head's 137 and Marnus Labuschagne's 58 guided Pat Cummins-led Aussies to a comfortable win in 43 overs.

With this, Australia clinched their sixth ODI WC title (most by any in men's cricket). On the other hand, India played thoroughly well throughout the mega event, at home, with ten back-to-back wins before falling flat in the final. After the match, many former and active cricketers reacted to Australia's win, congratulated them whereas and also consoled an emotional Indian team.

Also read: They didn’t call me so I did not go: Kapil Dev on not being invited for India-Australia ODI WC final

Shaheen Afridi, Pakistan's newly-appointed T20I captain, also reacted to Australia's win and shared a heartfelt message for Rohit-led Men in Blue. The pacer's Instagram story read, "Many congrats to @cricketaustralia on winning the World Cup title. Surely the better team on the day. Hard luck India but the team played fantastically well throughout the tournament."

At the post-match presentation, a dejected Rohit opened up on the loss in the summit clash at the Narendra Modi Cricket Stadium in Ahmedabad. Hitman said, "The result has not gone our way. We were not good enough today. We tried everything but it wasn't supposed to be. 20-30 runs more would have been good, KL and Kohli were stitching a good partnership and we were looking at 270-280 but we kept losing wickets. When you have 240 on the board, you want to take wickets but credit to Head and Labuschagne who stitched together a big partnership and put us completely out of the game. We tried everything we could but I feel wicket got slightly better to bat under lights. Don't want to give that as an excuse."