Union Minister Piyush Goyal on Monday (February 9) mixed diplomacy with cricket humour while speaking at a reception hosted at the residence of US Ambassador to India Sergio Gor, praising the US cricket team’s performance against India in the T20 World Cup and underlining the ambassador’s role in strengthening bilateral trade ties.

Referring to the recent T20 World Cup match between India and the United States, Goyal said the US may have lost the game, but its performance was impressive given the country’s relatively new engagement with the sport.

“The US may not have won yesterday’s match, but I must say, for a country which has not known cricket and has started on cricket a few years ago, the performance was fabulous,” Goyal said.

He highlighted a light-hearted observation about the margin of defeat.

“Sergio pointed out one very important factor — the US lost the match by 18%. And a very humble request I made to him as a suggestion that if only you had made the reciprocal tariff zero, you would possibly have won the match,” Goyal said.

“I was indeed amazed by the fabulous performance the US cricket team did,” he added.

Goyal also used the occasion to publicly acknowledge Ambassador Gor’s role in advancing trade engagement between India and the United States.

“I must place on record, the trade deal would not have been possible but for his support, his personal leadership to the entire engagement,” the minister said.

Thanking the envoy, Goyal said Gor’s efforts had helped further strengthen bilateral relations.

“Thank you very much, Sergio, for all that you have done to further strengthen this bond between the US and India,” he said.

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