“Victory
by the thinnest of margins”
-
is all that would exactly describe this year’s ICC world cup final. Many of us
could have even wondered whether we are actually witnessing a close fought
20-20 thriller! That was the level of excitement surrounding this year’s Men’s
cricket world cup final and we could have never asked for anything more from
the players.
The
2019 world cup final became the closest-ever final we ever had in the history
of the game. The hosts England defeated their arch-rivals New Zealanders in an
edge of the seat thriller at Lords. Surely matches like this will help to
attract viewership to 50 over games and to re-establish the tournament’s
credentials.
To
begin with, New Zealand won the toss and decided to bat first. The opener
Nicholls scored a crucial half-century. It was later followed by a rock-solid
innings by the Kiwi captain Kane Williamson to steer their team to a decent
total of 241/8. England despite chasing a modest total had a disastrous start
with their star opener Jason Roy dismissed early and were stuttering at 86/4.
All-rounders Ben Stokes and Jos Butler assumed the responsibility to handle the
pressure and took England close to the finish line. Even with the dismissal of
Butler, Stokes managed to keep his cool and hit a few lusty blows in the last
few overs to tie the match for his team.
In
the super over, England’s Ben Stokes and Jos Butler continued their good form
to post a par score of 15 on the board, scoring boundary a piece in the due
process. Guptill and Neesham took guard for New Zealand in the super over
against the unpredictable Jofra Archer. Wide delivery from Archer and a biggie
from Neesham kept New Zealand in the hunt with only a couple needed off the
last ball. Martin Guptill who was indeed a surprise selection for this super
over after a lacklustre performance all through the series failed yet again, as
he got out in the last ball while attempting for the 2nd run. As per
new ICC rule, England was declared as champions as they had hit the maximum
number of boundaries in the entire match.
Though
there is a long debate going on among the cricket lovers about the
implementation of the weird boundary count rule to decide the ultimate winner,
the match has not disappointed us. ICC now has its task cut out to decide
whether to continue with this existing system or adopt a better solution to
overcome these accusations in the upcoming games.
While
a few suggest that the winners of the previous encounter between the 2 teams
during the preliminary stage of the tournament could be taken into
consideration, few others suggest that another super over could be played to
decide the clear winner. But, there is no concrete rule yet from ICC regarding
the same and whether the same players could be allowed to play the 2nd
super over or not will make us enter into an all-new debate too!
Nevertheless,
England has finally emerged as the winners and the Kiwis are forced to wait for
another 4 years to see if they could rewrite history as well, like what England
did this time around. With super over also ending in a tie, the 2 teams equally
deserved to win the title for sure…
In
such a high octane game, it is an irony to know that the match hero ‘Ben
stokes’ who was pivotal in England’s victory was actually born in New Zealand!
From anchoring England’s chase to helping their team to tie the super-over it
was Ben stokes all the way. He seemed to have utilized each and every ounce of
his energy and skill to enable his team to break the jinx of being ‘World cup
chokers’, all these years.
Despite
playing out of their skins, it was simply not their day for the New Zealanders.
It was evident from Ross Taylor’s dismissal resulting from an umpiring mistake
to Ben stokes diving on the ball to guide it for a crucial boundary! It was
heartening to see the Kiwi skipper Kane Williamson displaying ultimate
sportsmanship amidst all these mishaps with a smiling face throughout the
entire course of the match. Surely Williamson deserves the next ‘Captain cool’
title after our very own Mahendra Singh Dhoni.
The
most controversial moment of the match happened when England was given 6 runs
for an overthrow after the ball ricocheted off the bat of Ben Stokes. This
resulted in 6 runs being awarded to England in the last over of the match that
eventually aided them to tie the match as well.
Several
cricket enthusiasts have questioned this decision by the on-field umpires as it
contradicts the ICC rules regarding awarding runs for an overthrow. Based on
it, in such a situation a team can be awarded only the runs resulting from the boundary
and the runs that were already completed. The batsman will be awarded the run
in progress only if he had already crossed at the time of the overthrow, which
was not the case with Ben stokes, and hence 5 runs must have been awarded in
this case.
Also,
the decision to decide the game’s outcome based on the number of boundaries
came under intense criticism from several former cricketers. Former New Zealand
all-rounder Scott Styris even took it to Twitter to vent out his frustration.
New Zealand skipper Kane Williamson rightly termed it as a ‘tough to swallow’
defeat too in the awards ceremony.
After
a very long wait of almost 44 years, the English team, led by able captain Eoin
Morgan, has managed to lay its hands on the coveted trophy while the Kiwis were
left shell-shocked to miss it this time around too after reaching so close,
exactly like their previous world cup outing in 2015!
From
getting knocked out of the 2015 World cup campaign at the hands of
Bangladeshis, Team England have grown leaps and bounds in the last few years to
lift the world cup and gain the ODI cricket’s top spot. It indeed proves that
cricket is a funny and unpredictable game. On the other hand, this nail-biting
thriller, at last, ended with agony for the Kiwis who did everything that they
could possibly do to win their maiden title…
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