Britain’s Duke and Duchess of Cambridge played a charity cricket match with underprivileged children in Mumbai on Sunday, the first day of a week-long tour of India that will include a trip to the isolated Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan.
Prince William and his wife Kate Middleton flew into India’s financial capital and met children from Magic Bus, Childline and Doorstep — three non-governmental organisations that work with children.
They took an open-top bus tour and played a cricket match with a team from a local cricket academy and kids backed by the three charities.
Kate, in sunglasses and a red, white and blue summer dress, faced a few deliveries from Indian cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar. She struck one ball only to be caught out, leading to a lively exchange between William and the fielders.
The royal couple, travelling without children George and Charlotte, were due to attend a Bollywood-inspired charity gala on Sunday night amid speculation that Kate may appear in a sari from a top Indian fashion designer.
William and Kate’s tour takes in New Delhi, where they will lunch with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a wildlife park in Assam famed for its one-horned rhinos, and Bhutan.
Their tour ends back in India on Saturday at the Taj Mahal, revisiting the scene of a solo — and much photographed — visit in 1992 by William’s mother, the late Princess Diana, to the monument to love.
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge also paid their respects at one of the sites of the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks on their first royal tour in two years.
The couple began their first engagement in India by laying a wreath at a memorial at Mumbai’s iconic Taj Mahal Palace hotel, where 31 people were killed in the 2008 attacks. A total of 166 people were killed when 10 gunmen targeted multiple locations in the city.
— Reuters and AP