India’s dreams come crushing as their World Cup campaign comes to an end after a phenomenal performance from New Zealand.
India and New Zealand faced each other in the first semi final of the World Cup 2019, which was scheduled to take place on Tuesday, but at the end of New Zealand’s inning, rain interrupted the play and pushed the game into reserved day.
New Zealand resumed their inning on Tuesday from 211/5 in 46.1 overs and took their score to 239 runs in their quota of 50 overs.
The target seemed like a walk in the park for India, but Matt Henry and Trent Boult turned the table by removing their top three players, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and KL Rahul for 5 runs, who scored 1 run apiece.
India lost their fourth wicket on 24 in the shape of Dinesh Karthik. They enjoyed little cameos from Rishabh Pant and Hardik Pandya in the middle, where they scored 32 runs each on 56 and 62 runs respectively.
However, the veteran wicketkeeper batsman, MS Dhoni and Ravindra Jadeja had a match-changing 100+ runs partnership, which brought India extremely close to a win. At the end, Ravindra Jadeja and MS Dhoni lost their wickets after scoring on 77 (59) and 50 (72) runs respectively.
At the end, New Zealand registered an emphatic win by 18 runs and now they will face the winner of the second semi final between Australia and England in the final of the tournament on July 14th.
DG ISPR Asif Ghafoor congratulated New Zealand cricket team for beating India in the semi final and qualifying for the World Cup final after a thrilling contest on Wednesday at Manchester.
DG ISPR took to his Twitter to hail New Zealand’s team spirit, sportsmanship and their moral values.
He also tagged New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in his tweet and he also included the hash tag #SurpriseByNZ.