India moves to T20 WC final thrashing England in a rain soaked semi final
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Photo: Collected
Exactly 10 years ago in 2014, India reached the final of the T20 World Cup in Bangladesh. However, the then Mahendra Singh Dhoni-led team lost that match to Sri Lanka by 6 wickets. After that, India reached the semi-finals of two more seasons but did not play the final. Finally, Rohit Sharma's team reached the final of the World Cup in this white-ball format after a decade at the third attempt. In the previous 2022 tournament, India lost to England by 10 wickets and exited from the semis. After a couple of years, in this ninth edition of the tournament, Rohit-Kohli beat the English by 68 runs and won the ticket to the final.
In that match in Adelaide, the English chased down the target of 169 runs given by India without losing any wicket. In this semi also the target was very close, 172 runs. Butler-Salt could not survive in front of the Indian spinners this time. They were bundled out for 103 runs off 4 balls in 16 overs. And with this, India reached the final for the third time in the tournament, sending off the champions of the previous season.
The second semi-final match at Guyana's Providence Stadium started with rain. The match started 1 hour 15 minutes late. England captain Josh Buttler won the toss and decided to bowl first. India scored 171 runs for 7 wickets in the stipulated 20 overs.
In pursuit of that challenging target, the English got off to a rough start with Butler's batting rampage. Their scoreboard in 3 overs was 26 runs, of which 23 runs came from Butler. They hit the first blow of the innings on the first ball of the next fourth over. Akshar Patel's reverse swing hits the edge of Buttler's bat and goes up to Pant. The Indian wicketkeeper took an easy catch there.
From that start of losing wickets, English batsmen kept losing wickets at regular intervals. Half of the team went to dressing room in 49 runs. Later Harry Brooke's 25 and Jofra Archer's 21 only reduced the deficit and England was reduced to 103 runs. Akshar bowled 4 overs and took 3 wickets with 23 runs and also won the man of the match title. Meanwhile, Kuldeep Yadav also took 3 wickets and Bumrah took 2.
Meanwhile, Virat Kohli could not last the day even though he started to bat earlier. The team returned to the lead of 19 runs by 9 runs. Meanwhile Rishabh Pant also returned quickly. The scoreboard was 40 runs from 5 overs and 2 balls. However, Rohit Sharma continued to advance in this match in the rhythm of the previous match. Suryakumar Yadav also continued to give worthy support to the captain of the team at four. However, at the end of the eighth over of the innings, it rained again and the game was stopped again for about 1 hour and 15 minutes.
After the start of the game after the rain of the second round, Rohit-Suryakumar continued to move forward keeping the pace of runs after taking the wicket. 73 runs came from their third pair. Captain Rohit scored 57 runs off 39 balls. From there another set batsman Akash measured the same path in 12 balls. He scored 57 runs off 36 balls. The scoreboard was 124 runs for 4 wickets in 15 overs and 4 balls. From there, Hardik Pandya's 23 and finally Ravindra Jadeja's 17-run cameo from 9 balls led India to a challenging capital of 171 runs. Chris Jordan took the maximum 3 wickets with 37 runs in 3 overs for England.
The ninth season of the World Cup, which started from the beginning of this month, is about to end. Earlier, South Africa defeated Afghanistan in the first semi and reached the final. Rohit Sharma's team will fight for the title against them next Saturday. The match will start at 8:30 pm Bangladesh time at Kensington Oval.
