Like everyone else at Lord’s, New Zealand captain Kane Williamson had no idea how England had won the World Cup. Literally.
“Was it boundaries or something?” he asked, deadpan in a post-match press conference dripping with the dignity we have come to expect from Williamson and his team.
The man of the tournament was clapped out of the room — that is saying something when that room is occupied with cynical hacks. Williamson is class personified.
In the end, the Cricket World Cup — a brilliant 45-day, 48-match tournament — ended with a tie in the match, then another tie in the Super Over. To separate the teams, the ICC used a regulation they never expected to have to use: who scored the most boundaries? England won: 26-17, and are therefore World champions for the first time in men’s cricket. Both teams knew the rule and accepted it.
But it was the greatest ODI ever played, the greatest moment England have ever had using a white ball: a perfect day that had an imperfect decisive moment. New Zealand lost on a technicality. The shortcomings of such a system are obvious. Four singles are worth the same amount as four scored all in one shot. It does not matter how you do it, but that you do it. Given their scores were the same, that England were better at hitting boundaries means that New Zealand were better at finding gaps and singles.
How better to decide the game? Wickets taken seems a bit better, but the aim of this game is to score more runs, not take more wickets. So in a tournament that features a round-robin system, you could take the group game result. But, when these teams met 12 days ago, England had to win, whereas New Zealand knew they could sneak through with defeat. So that is surely not a fair measure.
My solution? Keep Super Over-ing. After one is tied, do another, and another after that if needed. So, after yesterday’s tie, England would bowl first, but a bowler other than Jofra Archer would have to deliver the over, and Jos Buttler and Ben Stokes would be unable to bat again.
Like a play-off in golf and, with the quality of resources diminishing — imagine Archer and Adil Rashid heading out to face the fifth Super Over, bowled by Mitchell Santner — a winner would be found quickly. After all, that represents one of cricket’s great fundamentals: that it asks elite athletes — bowlers — to do a thing that they are bad at — batting.
