For a moment all is silence. Jofra Archer stands poised. Martin Guptill awaits delivery. Lord’s pauses with them. New Zealand need two runs from the final ball to win the 2019 Cricket World Cup. Archer approaches the crease and bowls well. Guptill hits it to mid-wicket. Jason Roy gathers the ball and launches it to his wicket keeper, Jos Butler, who stumps Guptill who is a yard adrift.
At which point the whole night fell apart. England were first-time Cricket World Cup winners. Neutrals had just witnessed one of the greatest finales the sport had ever seen. Fans spilled out into the Lord’s concourses and aisles as the England players continued to celebrate, filling the night with song.
How it got to this point is anyone’s guess. As it reached the final over England needed 15 runs to win. Trent Boult, who became New Zealand’s first ever hat-trick cricketer at a World Cup, was given the responsibility to bowl.
The first few deliveries weren’t promising for England. A bouquet of groans began to descend onto the pitch, ordinary at first and then louder. Then came the twist that no-one saw coming. Ben Stokes hit it to midwicket. Guptill threw it back to the wicketkeepers’ stumps, at which point Stokes, who was diving desperately to enter his crease, obstructed the direction of the ball with his bat.
The ball went spinning towards the pavilion and hit the boundary. What now? This is a World Cup final. Surely a match of such vast importance could not be decided over a one in a million situation. Stokes surrendered and looked irritated. Cricket etiquette usually means the batsmen stop running, so they obliged. But that didn’t stop the umpire from awarding six runs.
And so, it came to the final ball, where the Kiwi’s stumped Stokes, who needed two runs off the final ball, and the match entered the super over – the equivalent to a penalty shoot-out.
Jos Butler and Ben Stokes wandered out to bat. The festering nerves inside the ground began to seep out onto the grass. They hit 15 runs and so it was over to New Zealand. The rest is history.
The post-match fireworks were barely discernible against the blue summer evening sky. It was a cruel blow for New Zealand who on another day would never have lost. In a World Cup final, there is usually only ever one winner. But tonight, the summer sport of cricket was the real winner.
Alex's Sports Column 