New Delhi:

Tech honchos Satya Nadella, Sundar Pichai, and others hailed India’s historic win over South Africa in a nerve-wrenching final of the ICC T20 World Cup at the Kensington Oval in Barbados on Saturday.

Alphabet and Google CEO Pichai posted on X: “What a game, could barely breathe, everything that makes sports incredible. Congrats India, so well deserved! SA was incredible. Amazing.”

Congratulating the Men in Blue, Microsoft Chairman and CEO Nadella said, “What a final. Congrats, India, and well played, South Africa. Super World Cup… let us have more cricket in the West Indies and USA.”

Meanwhile, Mahindra Group Chairman Anand Mahindra asked ChatGPT to make a graphic image showing the Indian cricket team as Superheroes.

“Because they were SuperCool till the end. The greatest gift of this final to India was that it didn’t come easy. It almost slipped out of their grasp. But they never lost the match in their minds,” he posted on X.

“Reminding all of us that being a Superhero never comes without a fierce determination to win and a Never Give In attitude. Jai Ho!” Mahindra said.

Earlier, Hardik Pandya’s 3-20 and Jasprit Bumrah’s 2-18 helped an unbeaten India to come back and clinch their second title in the shortest format with a seven-run win at the Kensington Oval.

Talismanic batter Virat Kohli stepped up to end his lean run with a 59-ball 76 to help India post a competitive 176/7, the highest total in a Men’s T20 World Cup final.

Kohli’s 72-run stand for the fourth wicket with Axar Patel, who made 47 off 31 balls, and a 57-run partnership with Shivam Dube, who hit a 16-ball 27, helped India go past the 175-run mark, as they scored 42 runs off the last three overs.

In reply, South Africa were very much in sight to chase down the total. But Hardik taking out Heinrich Klaasen propelled India to come back into the match and end a long 11-year global trophy drought as they restricted South Africa to 169/8.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Microsoft Corp. was willing to hide its search engine’s “Bing” brand on Apple Inc. devices in order to secure an agreement with the iPhone maker and unseat Google, Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella testified Monday.

Taking the stand at Google’s antitrust trial, Microsoft’s Nadella described the lengths his company was willing to go to become Apple’s default search engine, a position that Google currently enjoys. That included offering “strategic flexibility” on how to brand the search engine and encouraging Apple to look at its technology independently of the Bing brand.

The testimony was part of a Department of Justice trial against Google, which the government says has used its search dominance to quash competition and hurt consumers. The company’s agreement with Apple is central to that case. Google pays billions of dollars a year to be the default option for Apple devices, and Microsoft has tried – and failed – to offer a more attractive deal.

Getting that default spot from Apple would be “game changing,” Nadella said. “Whomever they choose, they king-make.”

Nadella did make inroads with Apple between 2013 and 2017, when the iPhone maker opted to replace Google as the search engine powering Siri and the Spotlight feature on its devices. Apple, however, never dropped Google as the default in its Safari web browser and reverted back to Google in the other areas after only four years.

The discussion about dropping the Bing brand happened during negotiations in 2018. The arrangement would have meant Safari search results were powered by Bing, but under an alternative brand.

Nadella said he has tried to replace Google as Apple’s default search engine every year since he became CEO in 2014. In earlier testimony Monday, he said Apple used Microsoft to “bid up the price” it gets paid by Google.

“Do you think Google would continue to pay Apple if there was no search competition? Why would they do that?” he said.

Apple services chief Eddy Cue has said he works with Google because the Mountain View, California-based company provides the best search results. The iPhone maker gets roughly $8 billion annually from the Google deal, which is structured as a revenue-share agreement.

Microsoft had even offered to sell Bing to Apple around 2020, Bloomberg News reported last week. Cue declined that overture.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)