Mohammed Shami celebrates with Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill after taking the wicket of New Zealand's Lockie Ferguson, caught out by KL Rahul to win the match and advance to the finals.
Credit: Reuters Photo
As the clock trickled towards 9.00 pm on a dew-less night at the Wankhede stadium, there was a sense of disbelief in the air.
New Zealand, chasing an improbable 398, had quietly orchestrated an act which was beginning to have shades of a coup in it. Through Daryl Mitchell and Kane Williamson, they were now left with 178 runs to win from 107 balls and they had eight wickets as a buffer.
Shami, who had put down a sitter off Williamson’s miscued blade only three overs ago, was called on by Rohit Sharma to redeem himself.
India’s bowler of the World Cup had done his bit in his first spell of 4-0-26-2, but the pressure was writ on his face for this was it, this was the time for India to put New Zealand away or…
Shami (7/57) drifted one into the pads of Williamson, and the man on 69 attempted a pick-up. The shot looked a good one at first, but the angle of the arc changed so much that the ball ended up resting in Suryakumar Yadav’s hands at deep square leg instead of clearing the ropes.
Mumbai let out a deafening scream, and before the reverberation finished its cycle, Shami trapped Tom Latham leg before wicket with New Zealand still on 220.
Mitchell (134), a centurion by now, looked towards his dressing room in a plea for support. They kept coming, but India was not going to relive the nightmare of the 2019 World Cup semifinals this time around.
They restricted New Zealand to 327 all out in 48.1 overs to register a 70-run win, ensuring yet another World Cup final.
India will take on the winner of the second semifinal between Australia and South Africa on November 19 in Ahmedabad, but that game is possibly the farthest on their minds after this tussle. This game against New Zealand is the kind of game you want a day or two to recover from.
The fact that India couldn’t toy with New Zealand despite putting up their second-highest innings tally in this tournament (397/4 in 50 overs) is precisely why Rohit spoke so highly of his opponents a day prior.
It didn’t look so early in the day when India won the toss and decided to bat because Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill made scoring look obnoxiously easy.
With Rohit scoring at a strike rate of over 160, and Gill biding time before the eventual push, India had cruised to 71 at the time of the Indian skipper’s dismissal.
Kohli then arrived and did his thing, meaning he scored a century (117). Only this time, it was the record-breaking 50th one in ODIs, and that was obviously going to eat up all the spotlight.
While that Sachin Tendulkar-Kohli comparison montage played on loop, Gill had retired hurt after injuring his hamstring on 80, Shreyas Iyer (105) had come on and belted one of the most dominant hundreds this tournament has seen and KL Rahul played out a fun cameo.
An innings so complete and a tally so beyond reach would have crippled most sides in world cricket. That’s actually how India have gone about their business so far, but they were going to have to do more than just that for their tenth win on the trot.
They did, and so the final beckons.