Day 55: Semi Final India vs. NZ Reserve Day




Today we plan to go to the cricket ground at Manchester to watch the match suspended yesterday, to be continued today. We took our car to Manchester as we were to be interviewed by BBC for their programme BBC Breakfast live. Further, we had got information about one place where we can park car very near to the stadium.

We were invited by BBC Studio for an interview in their Studio. We had to reach there by 7:45 am.  They have a very popular programme named BBC Breakfast where they invite some guests regularly. They had picked us for that today’s programme. They took the photos of our car first. Then we went to the Studio upstairs. The interview was done at 8:50 am. The interview was live and lasted about 5 minutes.

This is one programme which has very good following. This brought us to the celebrity status, at least for a day. When we were walking to the stadium after parking the car, one British lady asked whether we are the same family who came on TV some time back. There was another family going to the stadium, they took photos with us. In the stadium also many persons recognised us, thanks to BBC Breakfast live programme where we appeared in the morning. ICC has also featured our interview on their front page on site.

The match started on time. India could restrict New Zealand to 239 for 8. It looked to be a good score to chase. India started disastrously. They lost three wickets with only 5 runs on board. Both the openers and Kohli scored one run each and the stadium turned in to complete silence. Dinesh Karthik survived for some time, but in 10 overs India were 4-24 when Karthik was out. Rishabh Pant took some pains to stay at the wicket. Henry and Boult were in splendid form and they put India almost out of contention in the match. Pant was out when India’s score was 71. Dhoni came to join Hardik Pandya. Dhoni tried to control the proceedings with his hall mark style of batting. Hardik Pandya was out when the score was 92. It looked as if it is end of the innings.

Then arrived Jadeja on the crease. He played aggressively. Jadeja was hitting fours and sixes and at the other end, Dhoni was giving support to Jadeja. They took the score to 208 at the end of 47.5 overs. Jadeja scored 77 runs in 59 balls. Still India required 32 runs in 13 balls. Dhoni left after scoring 50 runs in 72 balls. After Dhoni left, all the hopes of Indian victory vanished and India lost the match scoring 221 all out in 49.3 overs.

It was very good match. It had all the qualities of good ODI match. The ball was doing its bit and Williamson, Taylor and Jadeja could get big scores. There were ups and downs in both the innings. But at the end, India lost the match and they have to bow out of the tournament.

We returned to the Hotel late in the evening. Tomorrow we plan to go to Wales, Ireland and Northern Ireland.

No comments:

Post a Comment