West Indies defeated New Zealand by 13 runs in the 26th match of T20 World Cup 2024. With this win, the West Indies team has managed to reach the Super 8. Shepherd Rutherford, who was part of the Kolkata Knight Riders team in the IPL, was the hero of West Indies’ victory. He played the biggest innings for the team, scoring an unbeaten 68 runs in 39 balls with the help of 2 fours and 6 sixes, and made a significant contribution to the team reaching a respectable total.
What happened in the match?
West Indies batted first in the match, West Indies scored 149 runs for 9 wickets in 20 overs after which New Zealand team could only score 136 runs for 9 wickets in 20 overs. Alzarri Joseph took 4 wickets for West Indies. At the same time, when the West Indies team was batting, the team lost 6 wickets for only 58 runs but after this Sherfane Rutherford played a wonderful innings and played an important role in taking the team to 149 runs. Rutherford was awarded the Player of the Match title for his fiery innings.
Let us tell you that two-time champion West Indies was eliminated from the Super 12 in 2021, while in 2022 it could not progress beyond the group stage. West Indies captain Rovman Powell praised Rutherford and said, ‘This is a great win. It was great to see that one of our players took responsibility. Rutherford’s innings gave us confidence.
I was preparing – Rutherford
Talking about his innings after the match, Sherfane Rutherford said, “I want to thank God for this opportunity. I was in the IPL for two months. I was preparing, even though I was not playing. But I was preparing for this in the World Cup. I wanted to take the match deep, this was my plan. Me and (Darren) Sammy had talked about this.”
Rutherford further said, “We talked about taking it deep and keep rotating the strike, because I can make up for it later. Looking at their bowling lineup, I knew they had two overs less and I was telling myself to take this match till the last. I wanted to score more runs in the remaining overs. This was my plan and I think it worked well. I will eat chicken curry tonight.” Let us tell you that Rutherford was bought by KKR for Rs 1.5 crore in the IPL auction. But he did not get a chance to play even a single match. Rutherford made his IPL debut for Delhi in the year 2019. Rutherford has previously played for Mumbai in the year 2020 and Bangalore in the IPL of the year 2022.
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