Fans gear up for India-NZ match but keep fingers crossed over rain threat

KOLKATA: Soumya Banerjee has taken a half-day leave from office on Thursday to watch the

India-New Zealand match

with his family while Sagnik Sarkar is planning to watch it on his mobile phone during office hours. But both are apprehensive about the weather in Nottingham, as showers have been predicted and the fickle English weather often play spoilsport.


Cricket fans across the city are bracing for an exciting encounter and watch India coast to its third straight victory at the ICC

World Cup

.

“Rain threatens to play spoilsport. It will be hard luck for India if the match is indeed washed away for the Men in Blue are on a roll. Both Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan have struck form, while Kohli and Dhoni, too, are blazing away. Bumrah’s yorkers

bamboozled

the Aussies in the last match and the spinners are also getting into the groove. So, it will be unfortunate if India has to share a point due to rain,” said Aviraj Bose, who works at a private firm.

Equally anxious is photographer Pratik Das who, too, fears a rain interruption. “I have been checking the weather at Nottingham on websites and they predict rain on Thursday. I hope it doesn’t come out true and we get to see India win,” he said.

Incessant rain has already washed out two matches — Pakistan vs Sri Lanka in Bristol and West Indies vs South Africa in Southampton — in the ongoing World Cup. Arpan Chakraborty, who works at TCS in Saltlake said: “ According to me it is a very casual decision by ICC to host such an important event like World Cup in this kind of weather in England and Wales.”