Unbeaten India on Wednesday passed their first real test at the Cricket World Cup in their semi-final against New Zealand and the hosts are hoping that the win over their bogey team will battle-harden them for Sunday’s final.
India arrived at the Wankhede Stadium, where they lifted their second and most recent World Cup trophy in 2011, looking invincible, winning all nine round-robin matches without any stiff challenge, including a four-wicket win over New Zealand.
However, the Black Caps had ended India’s strong run at the same stage of the 2019 edition, while Kane Williamson’s team also beat them in the inaugural World Test Championship final two years ago.
Photo: AP
India had also exited the 2015 edition of the ODI World Cup at the semi-final stage with a defeat to Australia.
“Today being the semi-finals, I wouldn’t say that there was no pressure,” India captain Rohit Sharma told host broadcaster Star Sports, adding that the team wanted to treat the match as just another round-robin game.
“Whenever you play the game, there is always pressure and obviously, semi-final adds a bit of extra there, but I think the guys were doing the job,” Sharma said.
Photo: AFP
As Daryl Mitchell and Williamson grew in confidence during their third-wicket stand of 181 in New Zealand’s chase of 398, the stadium went silent while millions of fans across the country probably wondered if the Black Caps would be the cause of another heartbreak for India.
“It was important to stay calm. At one point, the crowd went absolutely silent, that’s the nature of the game, but we knew that we had to pull something up from our sleeves and need a magic, either a good catch or a run out or maybe a magic delivery,” Sharma said.
Fast bowler Mohammed Shami provided that touch of magic with 7-57 — the best figures by an India player in an ODI and also his third five-wicket haul in the tournament, taking him to the top wicket-takers list with 23.
Photo: Reuters
India were uncharacteristically sloppy in the field against New Zealand, with Shami dropping a fairly simple catch off Williamson, Ravindra Jadeja giving away overthrows and the hosts also muddling up run-out opportunities.
Sharma will be hoping that his team leave the mistakes behind as they head to Ahmedabad for the final.
“We knew there would be pressure on us at some stage. We just had to stay collected. That’s what we did. We were very calm even though we were sloppy in the field, but that can happen,” Sharma said. “We’ve got nine perfect games on the field. So these things are bound to happen, but I’m glad that we could get the job done in the end.”
Photo: AFP
Meanwhile, New Zealand said that they are confident they have the foundations in place to continue to compete with the elite at the World Cup, even if they could be without Williamson and a few other generational talents when the next edition comes around.
Williamson, who has played in four World Cup semi-finals and two finals, will be 37 when southern Africa hosts the quadrennial showpiece in 2027, while strike bowlers Tim Southee and Trent Boult will be 38.
Williamson laughed when the matter was raised at his post-match news conference
“Are you going to talk about how old we are?” he joked, adding that he saw signs the ageing world-class talent were bringing along younger players.
“It’s been an ongoing effort as a side to keep trying to get better and push the boundaries of where we can get to as a team and all those people are part of that,” he said.
“You can only hope that, as we experienced from some of our leaders as young guys, that we can continue to bring players through,” he added.
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