Fixed or no one can never be sure, but people are definitely thinking that India’s malicious intention was behind their loss. India played such a dubious match against England on Sunday that even the commentators couldn’t help but actually talk about it.
“I don’t understand what Dhoni is doing?” Former England batsman Nasser Hussain said, “At least give it a go. Now the fans are leaving.” Ex-Indian captain Sourav Ganguly replied: “I have no explanation.”
With a huge total to chase, the Indian batsmen put only 28 runs on the scorecard in the first Powerplay and 42 out of first 60 were dot balls with just five fours. While, in the last five overs MS Dhoni and Kedar Jadhav presented a pathetic show with 20 singles and six dots. ESPN Cricinfo said, “It can be definitively said that India lacked intent upfront and at the death.”
Only Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma partnered a good total to get the scores cracking. But with Kohli’s wicket gone, India’s chances for win slumped drastically.
The lack of intent was so evident that Indian supporters in the pavilion had realized and started leaving the stadium with few overs remaining. The remaining spectators booed out of nuisance.
Kohli said, “I think MS was trying really hard, trying to get that boundary. It was just not coming off because they were bowling good areas and it wasn’t easy to get those boundaries away when it got to 15 an over.”
Pakistani fans had pinned their hopes to India’s victory as it could cement Pakistan’s chances to cruise into semi-finals. They have not yet lost their hopes as they feel that they still have chance to move on.
Interestingly, among other stacks of similarities of this World Cup with 1992’s this is the first time that India have lost a match to England in One Day International World Cup since 1992.
Here’s how Twitteriites reacted to India vs England match:
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