London [UK], July 15 (ANI): India captains Shubman Gill and Harmanpreet Kaur, along with the men’s and women’s teams and management staff, met King Charles III at St. James’s Palace in London on Tuesday.
Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) Vice President Rajiv Shukla and India’s High Commissioner to the UK, Vikram Doraiswami, were also present during the meeting. India’s men’s team is on a tour of England for the ongoing five-match Test series. Meanwhile, the women’s team sealed a historic 3-2 T20I series win over England and will square off in the three ODIs, which will kick off on Wednesday in Southampton.
During his brief interaction with Gill, King Charles discussed the final moments of the third Test against England, which ended in a bitter 22-run defeat for India. He specifically pointed out the way Shoaib Bashir’s ball spun back into the stumps, which got Mohammed Siraj bowled. Gill simply replied, “It’s a game of cricket.”
Charles also held a conversation with vice-captain Rishabh Pant and world best Jasprit Bumrah, during which they shared a warm moment of laughter. King Charles then met the rest of the Indian contingent, including Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Ravindra Jadeja, head coach Gautam Gambhir and others. After meeting the men’s team, King Charles proceeded to meet the Indian women’s team and had a brief conversation with a few players.
Before meeting King Charles, the Indian team also met British actor and musician Idris Elba. During his brief interaction with Gill, Bumrah and Pant, the Heads of State lead star said, “I’d say I’m a fan, but I don’t follow cricket as well as I should. I was just a little bowler, that’s all.” He then went on to interact with the Indian women’s team.
After the photoshoot, King Charles spoke with India quick Prasidh Krishna and batter Karun Nair. He also met uncapped left-arm quick Arshdeep Singh.
Gill shared his experience of meeting King Charles and told reporters, “It was amazing. I think he was very kind and generous to be able to call us here, and it was a pleasure meeting the king, and we had some really good conversations.”
He went on to spill the beans about the conversation about the final moments of the third Test he had with King Charles and said, “Yes, he did tell us that the way our last batsman got out was quite unfortunate. The ball was rolling on the stumps, and he was just asking us how we felt after that, and we told him it was an unfortunate match for us. It could have gone either way, but hopefully we’ll have better luck in the next games.”
Harmanpreet shared her experience and told reporters, “Uh, it was a very nice experience. Uh, we came to England so many times, but this was our first time when we met him, and he was very friendly. He asked us, like, how the travel was and all, and, um, it was really nice to meet him.”
“Definitely, we have been playing good cricket, and I think with that we are getting a lot of opportunity to express ourselves, so really happy the way things are moving on,” she added.
India women’s team head coach Amol Muzumdar expressed his delight and said, “It’s been a very humbling experience coming here to the royal house and meeting the king. It’s been the first time, so we came all the way from Southampton, but it was really worth it, and the girls were really excited about this visit, and we are pleased that we are here.”
(This report has been published as part of the auto-generated syndicate wire feed. Apart from the headline, no editing has been done in the copy by ABP Live.)
