A Cup by Boundaries and Fate!

July 14, 2020

Today is the one year anniversary of one of the thriller most World Cup final in Cricket. On July 14 in 2019, the final of ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 was played at the Mecca of Cricket – Lords. The final was to be played between the hosts England and last World Cup’s runners up New Zealand. It was the most thriller and full of climax sort of match where the scores tied even after the whole match.

The lead up to the final was a turnaround for both the teams. In the round-robin round of the tournament, England lost two successive matches to Sri Lanka and Australia. Then all of the remaining matches for them became must-wins. England who was famously known to chock in major tournaments did not chock in the must-win matches in the tournament. The story for New Zealand was parallel to England. They made it to the top four because they had a better net run rate than Pakistan but in the semifinal match against India, New Zealand punched above their weight. India were firm favorites to win the tournament and New Zealand saved a small total of merely 239 runs against them. Kane Williamson’s captaincy and tactical bowling changes won the semifinal.

At Lords, Kane Williamson won the toss and elected to bat but managed an average score. New Zealand scored 241 for the loss of 8 wickets. Their batters failed to perform against the lethal bowling of England. Henry Nicholas was the only half centurion for the blackcaps. He managed to score 77 balls 55 and the next best to him was Tom Latham with his 47 runs. New Zealand didn’t have enough runs in their bank but it was a fighting total. They managed a win in similar situations in their semifinal match.

English openers were the most attacking duo of the tournament. The combination of the pressure of the final and some good bowling by the New Zealander made the aggressive Englishmen play very rusty little innings. The blackcaps managed to restrict the host to 86/4 in 23.1 overs. When the titanic was again about to sink for England, Jos Butler and Ben Stokes came as saviors for their team. Both the batters scored half-centuries and made a 110 runs sixth-wicket stand.

Again a drift of change came in the match. The Blackcaps were again in control by taking wickets in quick successions. The host needed 15 in the last over and it was when the drama started. Stokes hits the third ball of the over for six and on the next ball, the hosts got 4 extra runs of overthrow.

After the play of 100 complete overs, the scores were level. It was super over time. As per rules, the England team had to bat first. They scored 15 runs their one extra over. The Blackcaps scored the same runs in their super over. ICC implemented a new rule for ties prior to the World Cup. The rule was the boundary rule which states “If the Super Over also ends in a tie, the winner is typically decided by the number of boundaries scored throughout the match.”