Cricket: Cricket-New Zealand’s Ravindra lives up to his name in dream WC debut

AHMEDABAD, India (Reuters) – It is not easy living up to your name, especially when it is inspired by two greats of the game. New Zealand all-rounder Rachin Ravindra achieved that difficult feat with his dream World Cup debut against England on Thursday.

The 23-year-old made an unbeaten 123 off 96 balls against the defending champions to help secure New Zealand’s nine-wicket rout at the Narendra Modi Stadium.

Ravindra forged a brilliant 273-run second-wicket stand with Devon Conway, who smashed an unbeaten 152 as New Zealand romped to a 283-run victory target with 13.4 overs to spare.

Born to Indian parents, Ravindra, whose first name is portmanteau of the christian names of Indian batting giants Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar, could not have asked for a better place to score his first international century.

“A hundred’s always special. But in terms of being able to perform in India, it is pretty cool,” the curly-haired all-rounder told reporters.

“It was nice to have my parents there watching: they flew over from New Zealand.”

Ravindra was thrust into the limelight when stand-in skipper Tom Latham introduced him to bowl the 17th over of England’s innings.

The left-arm spinner conceded one run with his first two deliveries before Harry Brook hit him for two consecutive fours and a massive six.

Ravindra had his revenge, however, when Brook mistimed a pull off the final delivery of the over and holed out to Conway on the boundary.

The Wellington duo later combined with the bat to inflict more misery on England.

Groomed primarily as a middle-order batter, who is also a handy part-time spinner, this was the first time in 13 ODI appearances that Ravindra batted in the top order.

That would have been improbable had Kane Williamson, New Zealand’s regular captain, recovered from a knee injury.

“He is unfit so luckily enough, I got an opportunity,” Ravindra said of his experience of batting at number three.

“Obviously, Kane’s a massive part of this team, and I’m sure everyone can’t wait to have him back.”

As for his idols, it was one of the two Indian greats he was named after.

“I think those two are pretty special cricketers,” he said of Tendulkar and Dravid.

“Obviously, I idolised Sachin Tendulkar. I think a lot of people did. I think the way he batted and his technique was beautiful to watch.”

(Reporting by Amlan Chakraborty in Ahmedabad; editing by Ed Osmond)