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Rohit Mahajan
AT THE WORLD CUP
London, July 15
Men in Blue beat Men in Black at the Lord’s ground yesterday.
Well, it wasn’t quite that simple. England have got the trophy, but they didn’t really beat New Zealand — it’s impossible to call the New Zealanders as the beaten team. The two teams were equals, and they had to be separated by any expedient only because there’s only one trophy, and only one team could have taken it home. So it came home to England, by practically no margin — the final was decided on the basis of England hitting 26 boundaries yesterday against New Zealand’s 17.
Best team won
But, to be quite honest, England were the best team of the tournament — they had the best and most fearsome batting-order, top-class bowlers and a very cool captain of their own, Eoin Morgan. After the semifinals, when their fast bowlers eviscerated the Australian top-order and their batsmen struck fear into the hearts of Mitchell Starc and Co., England were the favourites in the final.
Jermey Coney, the former New Zealand captain, admitted this yesterday before the match began. “Well, I don’t want to say it… But yes, England are the favourites,” Coney said. “But New Zealand can find a way to win… They were expected to lose to India as well, but they found a way then, too.”
There was only one way New Zealand could have won — bat first, get to at least 250 to apply the scoreboard pressure on the home team, and then choke the life out of their batting order with tight bowling and top fielding. This plan worked — well, nearly —and it was only the English propensity of boundary-hitting that won the home team their first World Cup title.
Absurd
The end of the match was thrilling, but it was slightly absurd, freakish as well. Morgan, the other supercool captain in the field yesterday, said the ridiculous situation of the Super Over did strike him, and he tried to make the team relax. “I encouraged them to smile, laugh, enjoy because it was such a ridiculous situation,” said Morgan. “There was quite a lot of pressure in that particular moment of the day, never mind the rest of it, and the fact it got to a Super Over and we had that to defend. It was a matter of trying to put smiles on the guys’ faces to release a bit of tension and the guys responded brilliantly to that.”
Then, absurdity of absurdities, it ended in a tie in the Super Over as well —- and England began to immediately celebrate. Morgan and his men knew that they had hit more boundaries; they knew they had to restrict Martin Guptill to one run off the last ball and the trophy would be theirs. Morgan had taken care to ask what would happen if the Super Over ended in a tie as well. “When we took the field,” Morgan said when asked when he learnt that a boundary count would come into count in case of a tied Super Over. “I asked what would happen… We started refreshing our minds whether it was going to be a Super Over or not… And then communication from (umpire) Aleem Dar up to the changing room before we batted, and then reaffirmed when we went out to field.”
Praise to Allah: Morgan
So, we had a Catholic Irishman from Dublin, leading a team of a country that is officially Anglican Christian, a country that is a constitutional monarchy but with laws that are secular... And the Catholic Irishman from Dublin believes that “Allah was with us”. “We had Allah with us as well,” Morgan said. “I spoke to Adil (Rashid), he said Allah was definitely with us. I said we had the rub of the green.”
Team of 2019 World Cup
Jason Roy (England)
443 runs at 63.28
Rohit Sharma (India)
648 runs at 81.00
Kane Williamson (c) (NZ)
578 runs at 82.57
Joe Root (England)
556 runs at 61.77
Shakib Al Hasan (Ban)
606 runs at 86.57, 11 wickets at 36.27
Ben Stokes (England)
465 runs at 66.42, seven wickets at 35.14
Alex Carey (wk) (Australia)
375 runs at 62.50, 20 dismissals
Mitchell Starc (Australia)
27 wickets at 18.59
Jofra Archer (England)
20 wickets at 23.05
Lockie Ferguson (NZ)
21 wickets at 19.47
Jasprit Bumrah (India)
18 wickets at 20.61
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