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The player who destroyed a billion Indian dreams with
what he now remembers as a mere stroke of “luck” is Martin Guptill, a
batting icon in white-ball cricket in New Zealand. In the tight World Cup
semifinal match between India and New Zealand on July 10, 2019, Guptill
produced a brilliant run out to remove MS Dhoni. This ended up being the famous
cricket player’s final international match.
With only a dim memory of the pivotal moment in that
rain-affected match, Guptill has long since moved on. However, the former New
Zealand cricket player disclosed that he still gets a lot of hate mail from
Indian fans.
Ferguson hit a short ball to the veteran
wicketkeeper-batter, who was a bit late to react and could only flap it away
behind square, with 25 off 10 balls needed. Dhoni took a chance on a second run
since there was no fielder present. Guptill, positioned at fine leg, dashed in,
scooped up the ball, and hit the stumps with unbelievable accuracy. When the
ball castled down the stumps, Dhoni was inches from the crease.
Speaking on the sidelines of the Dehradun leg of the
ongoing 2023 Legends League Cricket, Guptill, who is part of the Urbanisers
Hyderabad squad, revealed that he knew there was no chance of a direct throw
with only one and a half stumps to aim, and hence summed it up as pure luck.
“It’s one of those things that happened so
quickly in the moment. All I remember was I saw the ball go up and I then I
thought, oh no, it’s coming sort of more towards me. So I put the skates on to
get on with that run. I knew there was no chance of a throw at the stumps, but
I just tried to have a shot and only had one and a half stumps to aim at and I
just got lucky. The stars aligned, and it was a perfect throw,” he said in
response to a query from Hindustan Times.
When told that it was a heartbreaking moment for the
whole of India, Guptill smiled and said that he still gets hate messages from
fans. “In other words, the whole of India doesn’t like me. I get plenty of
hate mails from there,” he added.