THIS DAY, THAT YEAR

ENGLAND WIN WORLD CUP

2019:

MMove over Edgbaston 1999 (and 2005), J o'burg 434, and the two tied Tests - the 2 019 World Cup fin al has all o f you b eat. This humdinger of a game that no one de served to lose, and no one did, was tied at th e end of the 50th, and so was the Supe r Over th at f ol l owed. England lifted th e trophy because they hit mo re boundaries in the game - a cruel final twist of t he knife in the side of New Zealand, who were also r ul ed to ha ve conceded six runs off one ball after a th row from the de ep hit Ben Stokes' bat w hen he dived for his crease to complete a second run in t he la st over and went for fo ur. New Zealand played o ut of their skins, b ut so did England. Stokes in particular, who kept them in the hunt at the en d of h is unbeaten 84, and t hen, all bu t spent, came out to bat in the Super Over and scored n ine off the first four balls. For New Zealand, Martin Guptill, who had had a poo r run with the bat at the World Cup, turned out in the Super Over alongside Jimmy Neesham, and ended up f al l i ng short of the crease as New Ze aland scrambled desperately for the run that would give t hem their first World Cup trophy. Spare a tho ught f or Trent Boult, who bowled the final over of the i nni ngs, cl i ni cal l y effecting t wo run-outs off t he la st two balls of it, and t he Super Over, and took a catch on the boundary in the 50th over th at nearly sealed the de al for New Zealand... before he stepped on the rope. For Neesham, who t ook three wickets, and ca me back at the end to wrest 14 run s off the first five b alls of t he Super Over. And for 24year-old Jofra Archer, who had not qualified to play for Englan d till ab out four months previously, and then ended up bowling the Super Over, winning England their first World Cup title in 4 4 years of try ing.