Terrible weather at the Old Trafford Cricket Ground in Manchester forced the suspension of the first semi-final match yesterday. Due to the persistence of rain, the match had to be stopped during New Zealand’s inning at 46.1 Overs, with 3.5 Overs still remaining of their inning.
When the cricket match resumes today at 10:30 (BST), New Zealand will commence where they left off at 211/5. More importantly, fans are in for good news because the weather in Manchester is expected to be dry.
Many commentators have said that New Zealand will have a lot of work to do when they resume their inning later today. Brendon McCullum expressed the need for the batting side to at least score around 250 runs by tweeting that: “Around 250 would never be enough in a bilateral series between these two teams on this surface but in a World Cup semi final….it may just be!”
Other commentators also said that New Zealand must score more runs to pose a serious challenge to the Indian batting side.
According to the ICC Win Predictor, India’s chances of winning the match are 89%, while for New Zealand it is just 11%. A significant reason for New Zealand’s depleted likelihood of winning the match is due to their low run rate so far.
