The Indian men’s and women’s cricket teams were hosted by United Kingdom’s King Charles III in the gardens of Clarence House on Tuesday. Indian High Commissioner to the UK Vikram Doraiswami and Deputy High Commissioner Sujit Ghosh along with Congress Rajya Sabha MP and BCCI vice-president Rajiv Shukla and secretary Devajit Saikia were also present.
The players said later that the King asked about their respective sporting assignments. The women’s team led by Harmanpreet Kaur recorded their first-ever T20I series win in England, beating the hosts 3-2 in five matches, and are set to embark on a five-match ODI series. The men’s team led by Shubman Gill are currently locked in a thrilling five-match Test series in England, which they trail 2-1 after an epic third Test at Lord’s ended on Monday.
The special cricket event was hosted by the British Asian Trust, a charity founded by King Charles III to tackle poverty, inequality and injustice in South Asia. “It was amazing. I think he (King Charles) is very kind and generous… we had some really good conversations,” Gill is quoted as saying by PTI after the audience.
Gill said that the King spoke about the freakish manner in which Mohammed Siraj was dismissed on Day 5 of the Lord’s Test, with the ball dribbling back to the stumps despite coming off almost the middle of the bat. The wicket ended India’s resistance, with their last three wickets batting out more than 50 overs and bringing them within 22 runs of victory. “He (The King) did tell us that the way our last batsman got out was quite unfortunate, the ball rolling on to the stumps. And he was just asking us, ‘how did you feel after that?’ And we told him it was an unfortunate match for us… but hopefully, we’ll have better luck in both the next games,” said Gill.
Harmanpreet said that it was nice to experience this for the first time. “It was a really nice experience. We have come to England so many times but this was the first opportunity to meet the King. He was very friendly and asked us about how our travel here was,” said Kaur. “It’s been a very humbling experience, coming here to the Royal House and meeting the King. It was the first time. We came all the way from Southampton but it was really worth it. And the girls were really excited about the visit and we are pleased that we are here,” said women’s team Head Coach Amol Muzumdar.
