ICC World Cup 2019: New Zealand Beat India in the Warm Up Match

ICC World Cup 2019: New Zealand Beat India in the Warm Up Match: Celebrated like a festival, cricket is not just a sport. The World Cricketing Festival, ICC World Cup 2019, is all set to commence on 30^th May 2019. Before that all the participating teams are scheduled to play a few warm up matches.

While the teams of Afghanistan, South Africa and Australia won their respective warm up matches, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and England had to settle for defeats. The news wasn’t good for the Indian fans as well, since India lost to New Zealand in their first warm up match of ICC World Cup 2019. Adding to this disappointment was India’s poor batting display against some very good pace bowling by New Zealand fast bowlers led by Trent Boult.

Post winning the toss, Virat Kohli chose to bat first under overcast conditions on a seaming London track, thereby throwing a challenge to his batsmen.

Kedhar Jhadav and Vijay Shankar did not play due to injuries.

By taking 4 wickets, Boult was the man instrumental in Indian downfall. He was ably supported by James Neesham who took 3 Indian wickets for 26 runs. Tim Southee, Lockie Ferguson & Colin de Grandhomme chipped in with a wicket each.

Indian Innings

India’s tried and trusted opening pair, Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan, opened the innings for India but when the ball was hardly three overs old, both were sent packing to the pavilion by Boult. Scoring 2 runs apiece, first Rohit Sharma was out, lbw to Boult and then Shikhar Dhawan was caught by Tom Blundell off the same bowler.  Castled by his RCB teammate, Colin de Grandhomme, Kohli’s innings was also a short one. Kohli scored just 18 runs off the 24 balls that he played.  Hardik Pandya was seen as a ray of hope for the Indian team but he too didn’t last long. Caught by Tom Blundell, Pandya could score just 30 runs off 37 balls. Both the Indian wicketkeepers were no different. While Dhoni scored 17 runs off 42 balls, only 4 were scored by Karthik. Jadeja was sole Indian batsmen to cross the 50 run mark. Yadav’s 19 off 36 along with Jadeja’s  50, helped India reach the 179 run mark.

New Zealand Innings

Chasing 180 runs didn’t seem a difficult target for Kiwis. New Zealand scored 180 runs in just 37.1 overs. Partnership of 114 runs between skipper Williamson and ever reliable Ross Taylor proved decisive for the Black Caps.  Martin Guptill scored 22 off 28 balls before he was caught by KL Rahul off Hardik Pandya. Before being caught by Sharma, Williamson had scored 67 off 87 balls. Veteran Taylor top scored 71 off 75 balls before he was caught by Kohli off Jadeja when only one run was needed for victory.

Although the conditions were challenging for the Indian players, their fans expected a better show from them, given their talent and experience the team possesses but the insipid performance of Kohli & Co. left them thoroughly disappointed.  We can only hope that defeat in this match was an aberration and Indian performance will improve in forthcoming matches.