 "King Charles described Mohammed Siraj's dismissal at Lord's as 'quite unfortunate' during his meeting with the Indian men's and women's cricket teams at his London residence. AP/Reuters")
It was quite the eventful day in Indian cricket on Tuesday with the senior men’s and women’s teams meeting King Charles III at London’s Clarence House, the royal residence of the British monarch. Both teams are touring England simultaneously, with the Shubman Gill-led men’s team playing five Tests and the Harmanpreet Kaur-led women playing five T20Is and three ODIs.
The meeting with British royalty took place immediately after the men’s team suffered a heartbreaking 22-run defeat in the third Test against the Ben Stokes-led English team. And King Charles, who had been coronated in May 2023 following the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, couldn’t help but react to Mohammad Siraj’s dramatic dismissal off Shoaib Bashir’s bowling that brought a thrilling final day at the ‘Home of Cricket’ to an end and sealed England’s victory .
“It was amazing to meet King Charles III and he was very kind and generous to call us. We had some really good conversations. King Charles III told us that the way our last batsman got out in the previous Test match was quite unfortunate, the ball rolling on the stumps…We told him that it was an unfortunate match for us and could have gone either ways. Hopefully, we will have better luck in both the next games,” Gill revealed to reporters after his meeting with the King.
King Charles enquires about Akash Deep’s sister
BCCI vice-president Rajeev Shukla, meanwhile, revealed that King Charles had also enquired about Akash Deep’s elder sister during his meeting with the Indian teams. Akash had revealed that his sister is suffering from cancer and dedicated his match-winning performance in the second Test at Edgbaston, where he collected 10 wickets including 6/99 in the second innings, to her.
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“It was a historic occasion. Both our men’s and women’s teams were invited by King Charles and met him at the Palace. The players were very happy because he asked about personal details of each one of them,” Shukla, who was also present on the occasion, revealed.
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More Shorts“He even inquired about Akash Deep’s sister’s illness. He had clearly done his research,” he added.
The Gill-led men’s team will travel to Manchester, where they will be aiming to level the five-Test series 2-2 in the fourth Test that gets underway at Old Trafford next week.
Harmanpreet and Co, meanwhile, turn their attention towards the three-match ODI series against England that gets underway on Wednesday after pulling off a historic 3-2 T20I series win – their first on English soil .