Thursday 28 / November / 2024
Bengaluru: New Zealand pacer Trent Boult is "excited" about the prospect of facing India in the semi-final of the ongoing World Cup after the Kiwis further fortified their hopes of sealing a place in the semi-final with a 5-wicket victory over Sri Lanka on Thursday.
Boult with his calm demeanour produced an economical as well as fierce spell to put the Kiwis in the driver's seat. With this victory, New Zealand are in pole position to face India in the semi-final.
Boult after the victory talked about the prospect of facing the high-flying 'Men in Blue' and said, "I can't speak on what they're thinking but from our point of view to play World Cup in India and to come up against the host nation a team that's red hot playing good cricket at a great ground - you couldn't script it any better. So excited if that happens, I feel like we've done all we can from our point of view and yeah, we'll just wait and see what happens."
"Yeah, as I said earlier, very good players. They're playing a positive style of cricket and yeah, I suppose playing shots does present chances - but yeah, we're going to be very clear with how we're going to tackle that game if it happens still has to be ticked off but yeah, I think there'll be a lot of excitement and the prospect of that challenge and like I said it doesn't get any bigger than taking on India in front of 1.5 billion people. Yeah, it's very exciting," Boult added.
New Zealand's victory over Sri Lanka also saw Boult achieve a major milestone as he became the first Kiwi bowler to claim 50 wickets in the ODI World Cup.
Sri Lanka skipper Kusal Mendis became his 50th victim in the tournament, that too in just 28 innings. Only Australia's Mitchell Starc (19) and former Sri Lanka speedster Lasith Malinga (25) have managed to claim 50 wickets in fewer innings than him.
Boult's 50th wicket also made him just the sixth bowler to do so in the ODI World Cup. Former Australian pacer Glenn McGrath is the leading wicket-taker in the ODI World Cup with 71 scalps to his name. He also became the third Blackcaps bowler to have more than 600 wickets in international cricket.
Talking about his individual achievements he said, "Very proud, not something that I was ever targeting, but yeah, everyone loves World Cup cricket. Everyone wants to play against the best players and test their game out. Yeah, I've been very fortunate to have three campaigns in the ODI shares and, yeah, nice to be contributing. I've enjoyed playing with all the guys here. I've got very good friends in the team and, you know, we really help each other out. So nice to bring up 50 this afternoon and yeah, hopefully a few more."
Coming to the match, New Zealand pacers restricted Sri Lanka to a paltry score of 171 with Trent Boult leading the charge with the white ball. The Kiwis stumbled a couple of times but ended up chasing the total with three overs to spare and registered a 5-wicket victory.
