World Cup 2019: India loses against England, but conspiracy theorists win
Following India's knock against England, they gathered 11 points — now, we only need one more point to qualify for the semi-finals.
New Zealand and India, with 11 points each, are thus set to go through to the knockout stages.
On Sunday, for the first time, Pakistani fans were seen cheering for Team India. Cricket fans at the stadium and online alike included Pakistani supporters rooting for India.
There was a reason.
If England would have lost to India — which Pakistan was hoping for — they would have remained on eight points and their next match is against New Zealand — who are having a terrific World Cup. Now, with England winning, Pakistan’s next match is against Bangladesh — and they have to win against them with a big margin for the net run-rate to come into force for them to qualify.
England made 337 against India.
In the first 10 overs, India managed 28 runs with the loss of one wicket. But, if you are chasing a 300-plus score, no matter whether you have Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Hardik Pandya in your side, your team will really struggle to reach the 300-mark if only 20 runs are scored in the first 10 overs. It seemed like Team India were following some seemingly unheard-of script, to not go off after the bowlers in the first 10 overs, to keep wickets and then accelerate — but with no aggression at all.
Hardik and Dhoni didn’t target Adil Rashid, scoring only five runs, all in singles.
To fans watching in dismay, it seemed like there was no intent even from the Indian team to win the match.
In fact, the most striking aspect of India’s chase came when only one six was scored in the entire innings — and that too in the last over, while England had hit 13 sixes.
Sunday's result had been spoken of by former Pakistani cricketer, Basit Ali, who, voicing a conspiracy theory, alleged that India might even deliberately lose a couple of matches to keep Pakistan away from semi-final qualification. “India will never want Pakistan to reach the semi-finals. They have matches remaining against Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Everybody saw how India won against Afghanistan," Basit alleged during a talk show in 'ARY News'. He also claimed that New Zealand apparently deliberately lost to Pakistan (in league stage) in the 1992 World Cup to be able to play the semifinals at home.
India faces Bangladesh tomorrow and even if they lose, they will still be in the fray for the semi-finals as they have one more match against Sri Lanka. A loss against Bangladesh will mean that the East Bengal neighbours will get nine points and will be equal to Pakistan — then, everything is down to the net run-rate.
Conspiracy theorists are already buzzing over the chances of India possibly losing against Bangladesh, Pakistan thereby being kept out of the next stage. These are deeply harmful speculations though and should be ended — that can happen only with transparent, clean cricket which shows a clear intent to fight, and with the authorities keeping a close eye on what happens on that pitch. The game involves the emotions and hopes of millions. That simply can't be bowled out.