ICC World Cup: India defeats New Zealand by 4 wickets at HPCA stadium in Dharmshala
In ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup, India defeated New Zealand by four wickets at HPCA stadium in Dharmshala tonight. India overhauled the 273 run target set by New Zealand in 48 overs losing six wickets. Virat Kohli scored an impressive 95 runs off 104 balls.
Earlier, sent into bat, New Zealand were all out for 273 runs in the stipulated 50 overs. For India, Mohammad Shami took 5 wickets for 54 runs.
India have made it 5 out of 5. So many headlines tomorrow across the Indian subcontinent will manoeuvre around this win. Kohli has become the toast of the nation once again. Few called him outdated now. Few felt he was past his prime. But the cliche goes like this – form is temporary but class is permanent! The man has shown his class throughout the campaign and again came to the party tonight. Even his recent nemesis, the SLAs didn’t really bother him much. He kept finding a way out. Cricket is a bit of chess at times and Kohli knows a thing or two about winning mind games. On the occasion of the festive atmosphere, entire India is already draped in a festive fervour. Rohit and his boys have given more reasons to party. We aren’t your usual party animals and we take your leave for the evening. Our team of MS Ramakrishnan, Nikhil Jadhav, Saurabh Shankar, Kumar Abhisekh Das and Harish had a gala time bringing this to you!!
Rohit Sharma: Good start to the tournament. Job is half done. Important to stay balanced. Not to think too far ahead. Important to stay in the present. Shami took the oppurtunity with both hands. He has the experience in these conditions and is a class bowler. At one stage, we were looking at 300 plus. Credit to our bowlers at the back end. I am enjoying my batting. Both are different personalities but we (Him and Gill) compliment each other. Happy that we won. Nothing much to say. He (Kohli) has done this for us so many years. He backed himself to do the job. Kohli and Jadeja pulled us back when we lost a few wickets in the middle. The fielding is something we pride ourselves on. Today the fielding wasn’t clinical. Ravindra Jadeja is one of the best fielders in the world. These things happen. We know that fielding is something that will decide a lot of things going forward. We love travelling and playing in different parts of the game.
Tom Latham: We played reasonably well. We didn’t quite capitalize in the last 10. We left a little out there. But credit to India. We weren’t able to get the double breakthrough with the ball. Rachin and Mitchell had a fantastic partnership to set us up for the last 10. We have a perfect group. We want to be in those positions. Rachin with the bat, Daryl with the 100. The bowlers did well. He played a fantastic innings. He controlled the tempo for them for others to bat around him. Just try to be proactive and focus on the matchups a little. Another good innings from him. We have a few days off. We have a day game here. We want to do good stuff.
Mohammed Shami | Player of the Match: Got a lot of confidence after taking a wicket on the first ball. If your team mates are doing well, you should support them, it’s important that the team performs well, I understand that. It was important to pick those late wickets, you always want your team to be the top side. Very happy that I got those wickets and India is on top of the table..
