This was the best game of anything I've ever seen. Baseball, football, basketball, soccer, hockey, golf, tiddlywinks, Monopoly, darts, tag, and even Thrones (I only watched the final episode). Nothing can top it for the drama, heart, determination and atomic sub-particle closeness between the two teams. If it can, I hope I luck into like it I did with cricket and can watch it.
There aren't words, really. But pictures alone won't convey what happened Sunday at the Cricket World Cup. The one above shows the winning margin, but this game deserves more than that.
Let's start with public transport. In most Commonwealth countries, fans flock to cricket games on trains and buses more than cars. The governing body, the ICC, needs to take that into account when scheduling ODI games, T20's, reserve days for bad weather, and the tiebreakers for those games that need them. If the fans can't make the last train home after a contest, they will be stuck and angry and blame the ICC for poor scheduling, and the ICC needs all the good will it can get.
Somewhere, sometime in a conference room, the sportocrats of the ICC sat around a table and discussed the tiebreakers for ODI matches. Nobody has reported when and where that was, and it may have been perfunctory: "We'll do one superover where each team faces 6 deliveries and the higher score wins, and if both teams tie in the superover, the team with the highest number of boundaries in the game and the superover is declared the winner. Right, then, let's hit the pub!" We may never know what other possibilities were considered, but one thing this method accomplishes is getting the fans out and to the train station and bus depot before the last trains and buses depart.
Wait, why are we talking about this? You'll see.
The 2019 Cricket World Cup Final took place Sunday at Lord's Cricket Ground in St. John's Wood, London, the place regarded as the "Home Of Cricket." New Zealand won the toss and elected to bat, putting their opponents, England, at home in the Home, into the field first. This choice by Blackcaps captain Kane Williamson was regarded as standard, and would likely have also been the choice of England captain Eoin Morgan had he won the toss. It was a clear, warm day, good for batting, and a good score would be tough to catch.
New Zealand struggled early, though, and never really got going. The highlight of the innings was the 55 made by journeyman opener Henry Nicholls off 77 balls. Liam Plunkett was his usual deadly self in the middle overs, taking out Williamson, Nicholls, and Jimmy Neesham to constrict the innings and allow the fast bowling of Chris Woakes and Jofra Archer to flourish. The final score was 241/8. Former New Zealand captain Brendan McCullum exhorted his old side in the comm box to 250, but they couldn't quite get there and the feeling was that 241 was not nearly enough against an impossibly deep England batting order.
England came out after the break and almost immediately lost Jason Roy on an LBW call off the first Trent Boult delivery. Williamson appealed, and the call was "umpire's call", meaning it was too close to overturn Marais Erasmus' original determination of not out. Roy only stuck around for 17, and his partner Jonny Bairstow could only manage 36 off 55 balls. It wasn't until the loss of Morgan after a mere 9 runs that England established some rhythm, and that was because of Ben Stokes.
A detour here. Ben Stokes has endured enough in the last three years to keep any number of 19th century Russian novelists employed. In the 2016 T20 World Cup in India, he was sent in to bowl in the 20th over of the final against West Indies with 18 runs to work with. He only made it 4 balls into the over. Each one was crushed for a six by Carlos Brathwaite, a name we will never forget thanks to the legendary call by commentator Ian Bishop. In 2018, he got into a fight in Bristol outside a pub with two men who were harassing two gay bar patrons. The fight was one-sided. Stokes, a 6'0" powerfully strong cricket player decked the men, and he was arrested and had to stand trial for affray. He was eventually acquitted of the crime and one of the men he punched actually apologized. Stokes missed most of 2018 and struggled to regain form on his return. In the first game of this World Cup, he made a one-handed catch running away from the wicket that was considered one of the greatest of all time. So, of course England took off because of Stokes. It HAD to be Stokes.
Morgan's dismissal brought in wicketkeeper Jos Buttler to join Stokes, and the two of them were able to get established, with Stokes staying disciplined and hitting the occasional six when it presented itself, and Buttler taking more risks and going for more shots. The pair combined for 110 runs, almost half the required total, before Buttler hit a flyer to substitute fielder Tim Southee. It was a huge break for New Zealand and seemed to turn the game. Chris Woakes hit a pop up to New Zealand keeper Tom Lathan eight balls later, and with less than 4 overs remaining, Stokes was forced to drag the tail-enders over the line. England's tail-enders are probably the best in the game, however, and Stokes had no reason to panic. Plunkett pitched in a handy 10 runs and got the game halfway into the 49th over, capitulating on a boundary catch by Boult. The next ball was enormous.
Stokes was on strike because he has crossed with Plunkett before the catch. He hit a ball almost in the exact spot as Plunkett's to Boult, but just a bit harder and deeper. Boult settled under it, made the catch, and then inexplicably took a healthy step backward and tripped over the rope, relaying the ball to Marty Guptill on the way down. Too late. It was a six, and England now needed 16 runs off the last 9 balls with that man Stokes still threatening. After a single, Archer was bowled for a duck to end the 49th over, and that set up the finale, with Stokes on strike and Adil Rashid at the other end, with 15 to get.
The first two balls by Boult, who was saved for this over beautifully by Williamson, were perfect yorkers that Stokes fended off for dear life. Boult eased up a bit on the next delivery, trying to fool Stokes with a slower ball, and Stokes slog-swept it over midwicket for a giant six. 9 off 3. Boult then either did or didn't mean to bowl a widish full toss, and Stokes smacked it down the ground toward midwicket. Guptill, the man who ended India's hopes in the semifinal with a perfect strike on the stumps to run out MS Dhoni, collected it, and then made a desperate throw from the deep to try to run out Stokes, who was going for two. The throw was on target, but the angle was bad for Guptill this time because the throw brought the diving Stokes right into play. The ball caromed off Stokes' bat and down to the boundary for an extra 4 runs. In my 10 years of watching countless cricket matches, I've never seen anything of its like. Here's where luck sided really with England, though: the umpires blew the call. They awarded England not only the four extra runs from the ball going to the boundary, but also the second run that Stokes was diving for when the ball hit his bat. Law 19.8 says that the runs awarded when the ball hits a boundary on an overthrow have to be determined from the point the throw was made. If the runners had crossed by that point, they get the extra run. If not, they don't. In this case, the runners had not crossed when Guptill uncorked the throw, so that second run shouldn't have counted.
Erasmus and the other umpire, Kumar Dharmasena, consulted with each other for over 2 minutes, but never called for the third umpire for a video review of where the runners were when the throw was made (at least the TV feed didn't show it like it usually does, anyway). They either didn't understand Law 19.8 or misinterpreted it and Dharmasena put up 6 fingers toward the scorers table. It was not a challenge-able play since it didn't involve a dismissal. Williamson basically shrugged at his misfortune and moved on.
So, then, England now needed 3 in 2 balls instead of 4 in 2. Better still, Stokes was back on strike since he was judged to have crossed Rashid. The next ball by Boult was a yorker that Stokes parried to long off. Of course he had to go for two, down 3 with 2 to go and needing to retain strike. Rashid had no chance at his end on the second run and he was run out for England's 9th wicket. The 11th and final batter, Mark Wood entered, and Boult had to keep England from scoring two runs, with a dot winning it outright and a single taking it to a superover. Boult tried yet another yorker but ended up with a full toss that Stokes hit to long on. Again, Stokes pushed for two and the win, and this time, Wood couldn't make the second, and the 10th wicket fell with the scores level. Superover! The first of its kind in a World Cup final.
They had to post the superover rules on the scoreboard at Lord's, that's how rare it is. Each team would get 6 deliveries. England would go first since they batted second in the game. New Zealand would then get a chance to answer. Remember that discussion about train and bus schedules? I promised I would get back to that. If the superover ends in a tie, to get everyone home in a reasonable time, the winner is judged to be the team with the most boundaries (6s and 4s) during the game, including in the superover. England had a commanding lead in this total by the end of the 100 overs, 26 to 16, so New Zealand would have to surpass England's superover total to win.
England sent out Stokes (of course), by now breathing heavily and covered in Lord's auld sod, along with Buttler, his best partner during England's innings. Boult bowled for New Zealand, and nothing seemed to go right for him from the outset. Stokes kicked it off with a 3 that landed between two fielders, and after a single, he hit a gorgeous 4 to midwicket. Another single put the relatively rested Buttler on strike, and he closed out the superover with a two to cover and a boundary to deep square leg. The number to beat was 15 for New Zealand, and a dejected Boult and his teammates trudged through the Long Room at Lord's to select their batsmen.
They responded with Guptill, in what almost certainly will be his last World Cup, and Neesham, a true original character in the Bill Lee mode with a devilish wit and a Twitter feed to go with it. England selected the controversial Archer to bowl. Nothing about Archer's play or behavior has been controversial. He's been terrific and a model citizen. The controversy lies in his national origin and late selection to the team. Archer is from Barbados with an English father, but worked hard to satisfy the England selection criteria of three years residency (changed in 2018 down from seven years to match ICC regulations). Many in the English cricket community questioned the timing of the change given the World Cup looming and thought that Archer had been given special treatment over more established and native players and that his selection would cause division in the ranks. Nearly everyone felt he was good enough to be in the side, though, and finally the ECB made the call right before the start of the tournament.
Archer appeared to be nervous at the start, bowling a wide to Neesham that barely skimmed the outside of the tram line. On the do-over, Neesham extricated a fine yorker from the blockhole for 2, and then a hit a wallop of a six on a full toss over midwicket. Archer steadied himself, regrouped and bowled another wider full toss that Neesham hit to Jason Roy at midwicket, who fumbled it for an easy New Zealand 2. That left 5 off 3. Archer's attempted yorker was better on the 4th ball, but Neesham fished it out for another 2 for the Blackcaps. 3 off 2 now, exactly what England needed in their 50th over. Ball number 5 for Archer was a short ball, and Neesham fought it off from hitting his shoulder and could only get a single, putting Guptill on strike for the 6th and final ball. New Zealand, little, nice, pleasant, polite New Zealand, stood on the edge of World Cup glory now, in the Home Of Cricket in front of a hostile crowd, needing just another 2 runs from their opening batsman to take it home.
As 2.5 billion people struggled to breathe, Archer tried a final yorker, swinging it into Guptill's pads. Guptill flicked it to deep midwicket. In any other part of the game this is a single, but New Zealand had no choice. It was 2 or bust. Guptill runs very well between the wickets even at 32, but this just wasn't hit far enough. The throw came to Buttler, who deftly collected it with both gloves and swept it into the stumps. You can look above to see how close Guptill was. Buttler didn't fumble or miss and it was over. The sports world's most consequential committee meeting, having started at a time and place unknown, finally adjourned at Lord's with England holding the World Cup trophy and New Zealand in agony.