The International Cricket Council (ICC) staged the 12th edition of the Cricket World Cup in 2019. The tournament was hosted between May 30 and July 14 across 10 venues in England and a single venue in Wales. Let’s discuss the 2019 world cup semi final between India and New Zealand that spanned for two days.
Background
10 Teams contested the tournament, a decrease from 14 teams in the previous edition. The competition shifted to a single round-robin group, from which the top four teams advanced to the knockout stage. Following six weeks of round-robin matches, during which four games concluded without a definite outcome, India, Australia, England, and New Zealand emerged as the leading four teams.
Knockout Stage
The knockout stage started with semi-finals at Old Trafford and Edgbaston, the winners of each progressing to the final at Lord’s. All knockout games were allotted a reserve day. If a reserve day came into play, the match would not be restarted but instead resumed from the previous day’s play, if there was any.
The first world cup semi-final was played between India and New Zealand at Old Trafford, while the second semi-final was played between Australia and England at Edgbaston.
2019 World Cup Semi Final
The 2019 ICC Cricket World Cup did feature a high-profile semi final match between India and New Zealand at Old Trafford in Manchester. The first semi final match began on July 9, 2019.
Let’s dive deep into its details.
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First Innings
Batting first, New Zealand lost opener, Martin Guptill in the fourth over, having scored just one run. However, the Indians found wickets hard to come by after that, as Kane Williamson combined with Henry Nicholls and Ross Taylor for partnerships of 68 and 65, respectively. Williamson managed 67 runs before he was the third man out in the 36th over.
Rain stopped play in the 47th over of the 2019 world cup semi final with New Zealand at 211/5 following the Neesham and De Grandhomme wickets. No further play was possible on the day, so the match went into its reserve day on Wednesday after incessant rain.
The semi final match resumed on the reserve day, July 10, 2019. Taylor managed another seven runs to top-score for the Kiwis, who got the score to 239/8 at the end of their 50 overs.
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Second Innings
The Indian chase got off to a poor start, with India falling to 5/3 in the fourth over. The top three batsmen went for one run each. Then, India was soon 24/4 after 10 overs.
After a small partnership of 47 runs for the fifth wicket between Rishab Pant and Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja was joined by MS_Dhoni for a century partnership for the seventh wicket that left India needing 37 runs from the final three overs. This 2-day ODI match was MS Dhoni’s final game for India; he retired from all formats in August 2020.
However, with both of them falling quickly in the last 15 balls of the match, the game slipped past India completely. Eventually, Lockie Ferguson and James Neesham bagged the last two wickets and helped New Zealand bowl out India for 221 in pursuit of the 240-run target, winning the semi final match by 18 runs. New Zealand reached the tournament’s final for the second world cup in a row.
Scorecard
Here’s the 2019 world cup semi final scorecard:
New Zealand Innings
| Batsman | Runs | Balls | 4s | 6s | Strike Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Martin Guptill | 1 | 14 | 0 | 0 | 7.14 |
| Henry Nicholls | 28 | 51 | 2 | 0 | 54.9 |
| Kane Williamson (c) | 67 | 95 | 6 | 0 | 70.52 |
| Ross Taylor | 74 | 90 | 3 | 1 | 82.22 |
| James Neesham | 12 | 18 | 1 | 0 | 66.66 |
| Colin de Grandhomme | 16 | 10 | 2 | 0 | 160 |
| Tom Latham † | 10 | 11 | 0 | 0 | 90.9 |
| Mitchell Santner | 9 | 6 | 1 | 0 | 150 |
| Matt Henry | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 50 |
| Trent Boult | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 100 |
| Extras | 18 | ||||
| TOTAL | 239/8 | ||||
| Bolwer | Overs | Maiden | Runs | Wickets | Economy Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Trent Boult | 10 | 2 | 42 | 2 | 4.2 |
| Matt Henry | 10 | 1 | 37 | 3 | 3.7 |
| Lockie Ferguson | 10 | 0 | 43 | 1 | 4.3 |
| Colin de Grandhomme | 2 | 0 | 13 | 0 | 6.5 |
| James Neesham | 7.3 | 0 | 49 | 1 | 6.53 |
| Mitchell Santner | 10 | 2 | 34 | 2 | 3.4 |
India Innings
| Batsman | Runs | Balls | 4s | 6s | SR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| KL Rahul | 1 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 14.28 |
| Rohit Sharma | 1 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 25 |
| Virat Kohli (c) | 1 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 16.66 |
| Rishabh Pant | 32 | 56 | 4 | 0 | 57.14 |
| Dinesh Karthik | 6 | 25 | 1 | 0 | 24 |
| Hardik Pandya | 32 | 62 | 2 | 0 | 51.61 |
| MS Dhoni † | 50 | 72 | 1 | 1 | 69.44 |
| Ravindra Jadeja | 77 | 59 | 4 | 4 | 130.5 |
| Bhuvneshwar Kumar | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Yuzvendra Chahal | 5 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 100 |
| Jasprit Bumrah | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | - |
| Extras | 16 | ||||
| TOTAL | 221 | ||||
| Bowler | Overs | Maidens | Runs | Wickets | Economy Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bhuvneshwar Kumar | 10 | 1 | 43 | 3 | 4.3 |
| Jasprit Bumrah | 10 | 1 | 39 | 1 | 3.9 |
| Hardik Pandya | 10 | 0 | 55 | 1 | 5.5 |
| Ravindra Jadeja | 10 | 0 | 34 | 1 | 3.4 |
| Yuzvendra Chahal | 10 | 0 | 63 | 1 | 6.3 |
