The World Cup started at 2pm local time, but it only really began about four and a half hours later.
To bet on the World Cup with our Match Centre Partners bet365 head here.
Up until that point, the game had been totally ill-fitting of a tournament opener, played out in front of empty stands, with Sachin Tendulkar doing his best to turn off those watching in a soporific commentary stint. The first innings was tactically intriguing, but ultimately low quality. New Zealand had stacked their batting and successfully fudged the bowling, with the 30 frontline overs expertly deployed and the part-timers skilfully rotated. England had huffed and puffed, with every attempt to move up the gears put on hold by a wicket, but 282 looked competitive.
The second innings kicked off in similarly strange fashion, Sam Curran’s first ball, a leg-side loosener, tickled down the leg-side to give the defending champions an early lift. Devon Conway and Rachin Ravindra took aim more successfully as England continued to stray, but this still felt muted, and not as a World Cup clash between the finalists last time round should.
In came Mark Wood, and as always happens when he joins the fray, those watching – and by this point, there were actually a few of those in the ground – shifted forwards in their seats. The first ball was right up there, quick, but on the pads, and whipped for four. The fourth ball was banged in at 94.5mph, and found Ravindra’s splice. This, all of a sudden, was what World Cup cricket should feel like. The next ball was short again, a shade slower. Ravindra stood tall and pumped it square over the rope. This wasn’t top-edgy, using the pace to guide the ball on its way, but authoritative and unequivocal. Ravindra had arrived.
A couple of hours later he would walk off having hit the winning runs, an unbeaten 123 and the Player of the Match award to his name. By now, the origins of his forename are well known, Ravindra’s father unable to decide which Indian cricketing icon to dedicate his son to and going with the portmanteau. This was an innings to delight those two purists, the drives sweet and crisp, the funky stuff shelved for another day. Any aggression came with a touch of elegance, Chris Woakes deposited back down the ground with a coquettish lift of the back leg. Spin was largely ticked over, only attacked when too short or too full. It was a statement knock, and what it said was: I am Rachin Ravindra. Remember my names, and what they mean.
This is also the type of knock that is becoming rarer in the modern age. Young batters aren’t supposed to announce themselves on the biggest stage any more, not with cameras at every youth fourth XI game and clear pathways for every elevation. There has been hype – that name was always going to attract headlines – and Ravindra graduated from the same U19 World Cup cohort as Finn Allen. There has also been the odd flicker on the international stage, with a 91-ball knock on Test debut in Kanpur salvaging a nine-down draw, with a solid A tour of India in 2022 further bolstering his subcontinental credentials. He is unusually mature. “For a 22-year-old, he has got a 35-year-old head on his shoulders,” Conway said after that debut. New Zealand pushed Ravindra up the order in the warm-ups to indicate how they saw him developing. But they can’t have expected anything quite like this, quite this soon.
This is a knock that announces a significant talent, but it also opens up all manner of possibilities for New Zealand’s World Cup campaign. The Black Caps were effectively picking from 12, with Kane Williamson, Lockie Ferguson and Tim Southee all injured. When that trio returns, Ravindra will surely now shift up alongside Conway, his opening partner at Wellington, with the big man slotting in at first-drop. Not only does that mean that New Zealand now look to have a top three to compare with any in the competition, it allows them the freedom to opt for whatever balance they want further down, given Ravindra’s serviceable left-arm spin, which is usually far better than he showed in a loose display against England.
Should they wish to continue stacking the batting, as they did today, they can, or they can go seam-heavy or spin-dominant as conditions dictate. It’s a cliche to rate New Zealand as dark horses heading into a World Cup. Now, with Ravindra stepping into the light, they deserve to be considered quite a bit more.
