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The World Cup is underway and in a manner not many of us saw coming. A one-sided affair to this marquee contest but we can expect the twists and turns to catch up slowly but surely. The action shifts to Hyderabad tomorrow where Pakistan begin their campaign against The Netherlands, who will be playing their first ODI World Cup fixture since 2011. A big moment for them and we'll be bringing our coverage of that contest right here on Sportskeeda. Do join us for that while also keeping yourselves updated with all the other sporting action from around the world including the Asian Games. There's cricket over there too with the semifinals of the men's T20 event taking place tomorrow. Join us for the full lot tomorrow - for the moment though, this is the duo of Pradeep Somashekar and Sooryanarayanan Sesha taking your leave. Thank you so much for tuning into our coverage of the World Cup curtain-raiser. See you tomorrow - good night and take care!
A thoroughly professional display by the Kiwis from start to finish. And that is some way to begin your campaign at the biggest event of them all - they've given the defending champions a sound thrashing and with Kane Williamson expected to return soon, they have sent the alarm bells ringing again. Something about New Zealand and turning up at the World Cup eh? They now head to Hyderabad to face The Netherlands, who themselves will be in action tomorrow at that very venue.
As for England, this is a warning of some kind. Mind you, they were on the brink of elimination in the 2019 World Cup before they roared back to lift the cup and they will know they have what it takes to bounce back again. Very early in the tournament in any case but clearly there are some areas they would want to work on while hoping that Ben Stokes turns up fit soon. They head up north by the mountains next to face Bangladesh on Tuesday, October 11.
He truly is a special player is Rachin Ravindra. It was on display today and as Shashwat Kumar pens in this write-up, he's another surprise package that New Zealand have unleashed. Read on and find out why!👇
Tom Latham (New Zealand captain): Obviously a fantastic performance. We saw a fantastic partnership between Rachin and Devon but I thought it was set up at the start. The bowlers did a fantastic job to restrict them. Credit should go to the bowlers for the way they fronted up today. It's been a pretty quick build-up obviously with the two warmup games and the guys playing in Bangladesh. We've known these conditions a bit over the last year or so. It was about adapting to the conditions as quickly as we could and we did that beautifully today. Henry and Boulty did a fantastic job up top. We knew England were going to come hard and they kept coming hard all innings. The guys chipped in with wickets when we needed. To restrict them to 282 from the position they were in was fantastic. The best thing was they (Conway and Ravindra) just looked to play good cricketing shots. Some of the shots they played was fantastic. It wasn't our plan to come out and play that way. (On Rachin Ravindra) He played a fantastic innings. We're obviously very proud of the way he played today and we're looking forward to getting around him tonight.
Jos Buttler (England captain): Disappointing day, very much outplayed by New Zealand, tough defeat to take but it is one loss to start, doesn't matter what's the margin of the defeat in a long tournament like this. I think, there's a lot of guys who have played a lot of cricket, we've beaten other teams this way, so we won't do much fuss about it. [On the total they ended up with] We were well below par, I thought we were aiming like to get 330, felt like it was a good wicket to bat but it got better under lights and the start they got off to was just brilliant, tough to build any pressure. We lacked at being clinical, some of the dismissals, weren't right shots and we will keep being positive and it showed that we need to get good scores on such tracks, can't be too defensive. They played some really good cricket shots and got value for them, margin for error was very small in the powerplay and someone like Devon Conway who didn't play any massive shots, but still scored quickly, same goes with Rachin Ravindra as well and two guys played great innings. [On the conditions] The conditions did change, the pitch skidded on easy on to the bat and we would've bowled first as well, it was still a good wicket and batting first we still made 280 and we were almost close to our best. [About Joe Root's innings today] There's no question on Joe, irrespective of formats and he's been the best for England for a long time, standards he's sets for himself is high. [Question on Ben Stokes availability for next game] We will wait and see, Stokes is working hard with the physios, fingers crossed for next Thursday.
Rachin Ravindra is the Player of the Match! Here's what he has to say: Unbelievable at times, it was just good to have a great day and it was a great bowling performance to restrict them to under 300, lucky enough to have Dave out there and showing how it's done. Spent a lot of time with Dave, very close mate and spent a lot of time with him back home has helped, has a lot of chat with him and that was pretty cool. If you ask anyone, four or five years go, we all knew Dave is what the player who he was, that's the beauty of it. [When he knew he would be batting at number] think I knew yesterday, lucky enough to get the opportunity. We thought, it might've swung a little bit at the start, but it's a good surface to bat on.
Match Summary: New Zealand beat England by 9 wickets with 82 deliveries to spare!
Devon Conway 152* (121) | Matt Henry 3/48 (10) Joe Root 77 (86) | Sam Curran 1/47 (6)
The wounds of July 14, 2019 remain for New Zealand. They're bound to exist with only a World Cup win potentially easing those. But goodness me haven't they begun their campaign to try and vanquish some of those ghosts to an extent at least!
283 is what they had to chase to get off to a winning start. They picked a side that had Mitchell Santner batting at number 9 and while their bowlers did a brilliant job in ensuring they didn't have a mammoth score to chase, it wasn't going to be easy on a tacky surface even as Devon Conway started in grand fashion. Will Young was strangled down the leg-side but that was the only good that came England's way today. In came Rachin Ravindra and out went the ball - he picked out the fence and treated bowlers of the quality of Chris Woakes and Mark Wood with little to no respect, using the pace on offer and powering the Blackcaps early on.
Conway replicated the same at his end as the runs flowed at a rapid rate with New Zealand maximizing the powerplay to the fullest. They were simply unstoppable even as England's bowlers looked toothless and completely lackadaisical. It was already slipping out of hand with the bowlers spearing it on both sides of the wicket. Turning to spin didn't aid their cause either with Adil Rashid and Moeen Ali taking a shellacking themselves. The odd delivery did stop in the surface but the two batters rotated strike beautifully, played out very few dots and tore into anything in their zone.
A partnership of 100 became 150 and soon, 200. Both batters notched up their individual hundreds and the writing was on the wall for England. There were a couple of very quiet overs in between but if anything, it was the calm before the final storm. Conway flicked a switch post the drinks break with New Zealand clearly intent on wrapping up this game and boosting their net run-rate. And so they did with a whopping 82 deliveries to spare!
They head to Hyderabad and well, given how quickly they've managed to wrap this up, they might as well look up some flights within the next couple of hours and head straight to the airport. After all, the Kiwis have been flying high throughout today even without their skipper Kane Williamson. A warning shot of the highest order fired to the rest of the competition! Stay tuned for the presentation...
And that's the ease with which New Zealand have done their job! A fabulous performance and they've got the better of the defending champions, to whom they suffered a heartbreak in Lord's back in 2019, in some style. This has been one good old-fashioned hammering!
36.2 Moeen Ali to Rachin Ravindra, THAT IS IT! NEW ZEALAND ANNHILATE ENGLAND! What a clinical run chase this has been from New Zealand as they thump the defending champions in this tournament opener! Drops it short on the middle and leg, Ravindra went back and flicked it to deep square-leg and seals the deal!
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Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad
