World Cup 2019: Popstar Rihanna cheers for West Indies at Chester-Le-Street

The West Indies faced off against Sri Lanka in their ICC World Cup 2019 match at the Riverside Ground in Chester-Le-Street on July 1. Both the teams have already been knocked out of the race for the semi-finals, but are playing for pride. Sri Lanka batted first and put on 338/6 on board, while the Windies attempted what would’ve been the highest successful run-chase in the World Cup a very special fan was in the stands cheering for the team.

The mega fan rooting for the Calypso men was none other than Pop star Rihanna. Though the match is a dead rubber between the two sides, Rihanna’s presence made highlights and she turned many heads while going all out to support the Caribbean team. Not many know that Rihanna, full name, Robyn Rihanna Fenty, hails from Barbados and grew up in Bridgetown and had some very famous connections with well-known cricketers.

Rihanna’s presence encourages West Indies in their chase of 338 runs

Rihanna went to Charles F. Broome Memorial Primary School and Combermere High School, where she studied alongside future international cricketers Chris Jordan, who now features for England and Carlos Brathwaite, who stole the show in a narrow loss to New Zealand with a scintillating century.

The official Twitter account of West Indies cricket shared the photos of the Men in Maroon being cheered by Rihanna with the caption, “Look who came to #Rally with the #MenInMaroon today.”

The ninth-seeded West Indies started off the World Cup in sensational fashion, blowing Pakistan out for 105 runs and winning the match comfortably, but then withered away not managing to earn another win in the competition. They lost five games on a trot with one of the matches being rained out. Their dream of making it into the semifinals ended when they were hammered by 125 runs by Virat Kohli’s Indian team in Manchester.

Even against Sri Lanka, the Windies bowlers failed to contain Avishka Fernando, who scored 104 and Kusal Perera (64). The Sri Lankan’s kept piling on the runs after Fernando’s maiden World Cup ton and ended up with 338 runs in fifty overs. For the Men in Maroon, Nicholas Pooran slammed his maiden ODI century in the chase but couldn’t take the team over the line as they were handed another defeat.