England batter Joe Root revealed that his teammates struggled to breathe properly during their last World Cup 2023 match against South Africa which was played in Mumbai. England were handed a massive 229-run defeat by South Africa.
The defending champions are now last on the points table and will face Bangladesh at the same venue on October 24, 2023.
Captain Jos Buttler’s decision to bowl first after winning the toss at the Wankhede Stadium backfired spectacularly as England conceded their highest-ever ODI total of 399 for seven on their way to a 229-run defeat that seriously dented their Cricket World Cup hopes.
The temperature in Mumbai was 35 degrees centigrade amid stultifying, hazy conditions. The air quality also dropped to levels rated as “very unhealthy”, players on both sides were left gasping for air, with South Africa’s Heinrich Klaasen unable to field following his 67-ball innings of 109 and England’s Adil Rashid, already affected by illness, struggling to catch his breath.
“I’ve not played in anything like that before. I’ve obviously played in hotter conditions, and probably more humid conditions. But it just felt like you couldn’t get your breath. It was like you were eating the air. It was unique.
You could see it with [Heinrich] Klaasen. You could see how much it took out of him, not being able to get back out onto the field. I mean you couldn’t get away from it. You walk out onto the field and your shirt’s soaking wet, and you have a lot heavier breath than you would do, and you know you’ve done your fitness and stuff, it’s not like you’re short on that. So you are very aware of it,” Joe Root said in a presser in Bengaluru.
According to locals, the air quality in Mumbai last week was unusually poor. The level of pollution on the Air Quality Index (AQI) – a sliding scale between nought and 500 where the lower the reading the better – was around 250 on the day of the game.
“Rash [Rashid], bless him, I don’t think was great going into the game. He put in a brilliant performance for us. Some of the noises he was making when he was walking back to his mark summed it up, really. Trying to get his breath back. It was tough, but that’s the sort of stuff that you come up against and contend with when you come out to play in India at this time of year,” he added.
Asked whether he thought the pollution rather than the heat had made it hard to breath, Root said: “Who knows whether it was air quality? I’m not qualified to know. It felt like quite a hazy day, wasn’t it? And you could definitely see that from one side of the ground looking back towards the sun, it was a lot harder visually as well than it was on the other side of the ground. Whether it was air quality or what, it was definitely an experience I’ve not had before.”
(The Telegraph inputs)
