Ahmadabad (I dia) : Oct 5 : In the opening match of the ICC World Cup 2023, New Zealand defeated the defending champions England by 9 wickets after a one-sided match thanks to the excellent batting and bowling of Dion Conway and Richan Ravindra.
The match between the champions of the previous mega event, England and the runners-up New Zealand, is being played at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, where the Kiwi team won the toss and decided to field. When England started the innings, openers David Mullan and Jonny Bairstow gave his side a 40-run opening, but Milan fell to Matt Henry’s wicket after scoring 14 runs.
The score had reached 64 when Bairstow, who scored 33 runs, tried to play Mitchell Santner’s ball over the covers but he was caught straight by Daryl Mitchell.
Harry Brook adopted a traditional offensive style and hit Richan Ravindra for two fours and a six over mid-wicket but lost his wicket trying to hit another six over midwicket, scoring 25 off 16 balls. Sent in to bat at numbers but the experiment failed and the all-rounder was bowled by Glenn Phillips after scoring just 11 runs.
Meanwhile, veteran Joe Root stood firm at the other end and played a responsible game, scoring a half-century and adding 70 runs for the fifth wicket with captain Joe Buttler.
Buttler looked in good form and scored 43 runs with 2 sixes and 2 fours but was caught by the wicketkeeper in an attempt to cut an inbound delivery from Matt Henry.
Liam Livingston also failed to play a big innings and fell victim to Trent Boult after scoring 20 runs. However, England’s hopes of a big score suffered a real blow when the 77-runer was bowled by Glenn Phillips in an attempt to play a reverse sweep. Chris Woakes also could not help the team in the trouble and went on to score 11 runs while Sam Curran also scored 14 runs and became Henry’s third wicket. In the last overs, contrary to expectations, the England team could not bat more aggressively, which can be estimated from the fact that England hit only one six in the last five overs and did not hit any boundaries. England scored 282 runs for the loss of 9 wickets in the allotted overs. For New Zealand, Matt Henry took 3 wickets while Mitchell Santner and Glenn Phillips took two wickets each.
Chasing a target of 283 runs, New Zealand opened the innings when Sam Curran dismissed Will Young on the first ball of his over with the help of captain Joe Buttler.
However, after the first wicket, the English bowlers were left desperate for wickets as Dion Conway and Richan Vendra starred for the English bowlers on the day on a batting friendly wicket. Both the players not only showed excellent batting but also played aggressively and scored runs at an average of about 8 runs per over and demoralized the English bowlers. After completing their half-centuries, both became more aggressive and quickly progressed towards the century. Conway soon completed his century off 83 balls and Jadeja followed him with a century off 82 balls. Both the players continued to play well and easily took their team to the target in the 37th over without any further loss to win by 9 wickets.
New Zealand’s excellent batting can be gauged from the fact that there were 82 balls left when New Zealand reached the target. Dion Conway scored 152 off 121 balls with 3 sixes and 19 fours while Richan Ravindra scored 123 runs off 96 balls with 5 sixes and 11 fours. It should be noted that the World Cricket Festival, one of the most popular sports in the world, was held in India, where the 10 best teams in the world will compete to win a trophy. Speaking after the toss, New Zealand’s acting captain Tom Latham said that skipper Kane Williamson’s condition was not much better, hopefully he will be fit soon. The pitch looks pretty good, hopefully the batting will be better later. Speaking on the occasion, England captain Jos Buttler said that Ben Stokes was not available for today’s match due to injury.
An interesting aspect of today’s match was that Ben Stokes, the men’s field of the last World Cup final, and New Zealand captain Kane Williamson, who was named the man of the match in the mega event, were not part of the team for the opening match of the World Cup 2023.