India face New Zealand in first WC semifinal today

Sports Desk:  Virat Kohli-led India, the only Asian team which remained in the ongoing ICC Men’s World Cup, are all set to take on New Zealand in the first semifinal of the event today (Tuesday) at Emirates Old Trafford, Manchester.

India secured a semifinal spot as the number one team at the end of the league stage. They won seven out of their nine league matches and lost one while the other one was washed out due to rain.

New Zealand, on the other hand, registered five wins out of their nine matches in the league stage. They confirmed a semifinal berth as the fourth team.

Both the teams were supposed to lock horns in the league stage on June 13. But the rain washed the game out without the toss.

Along the way of ensuring a semifinals spot, India were heavily dependent on their batting line. Especially, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli were imperious in the league stage games of India.

Rohit scored 647 runs in the eight matches he played with five centuries, which is the record of hitting the most number of centuries in a single World Cup.

Virat, the Indian captain, was also tremendous with the bat in the league stage. He scored 442 runs with four half-centuries.

Jasprit Bumrah was the best bowler for India as he took 17 wickets with the best figures of taking four wickets conceding 55 runs while Mohammad Shami took 14 wickets with a hat-trick against Afghanistan.

India and New Zealand faced each other in 105 ODIs. India won 55 of them and lost 45 matches while five ended with no-result.

However, New Zealand are leading in the World Cup history as both the teams locked horns in seven games of the showpiece event and they came up victorious in four of them.

Probable XI (India): Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul, Virat Kohli (c), Rishabh Pant, MS Dhoni (wk), Hardik Pandya, Dinesh Karthik, Ravindra Jadeja/Kuldeep Yadav, Bhuvneshwar Kumar/Mohammed Shami, Yuzvendra Chahal, Jasprit Bumrah.

Probable XI (New Zealand): Martin Guptill, Henry Nicholls/Colin Munro, Kane Williamson (c), Ross Taylor, Tom Latham (wk), James Neesham, Colin de Grandhomme, Mitchell Santner, Matt Henry, Lockie Ferguson, Trent Boult.

 

risingbd/July 9, 2019/Mukul