Last Sunday while France was busy celebrating La Fete Nationale (French National Day), often referred to as Bastille Day, the attention of the world’s sports fans was centred on their neighbour across the Channel, the United Kingdom. Everything of importance seemed to be happening there simultaneously; The British Formula One Grand Prix, the Men’s Final at Wimbledon and the ICC World Cup Final. It was a day that fans will relive forever.
Hometown hero, Lewis Hamilton set the tone for the day as he delivered the goods before 140,000 delirious fans following an epic battle with Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas. His seventh victory in the tenth round of the championship, was a record sixth British Grand Prix win, surpassing Jim Clark and Alain Prost, and the 80th of his career.
The fans’ attention could now be narrowed to the more traditional English offerings of lawn tennis and cricket. At Wimbledon, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic, who along with Rafa Nadal have dominated tennis in recent times to such an extent that it appears that no one else is playing, (of the last 65 Grand Slam finals, the trio has won 54, an era of unprecedented dominance with no apparent end in sight) were locked in a titanic struggle.
As fans flickered back and forth on the television channels, with the more technologically advanced fan keeping track of one encounter on his/her phone, the unlikeliest of World Cup Finals was taking place at Lord’s. The third and fourth place finishers in the round robin stage, England and New Zealand having upset their more heavily favoured opponents, Australia and India, were dueling it out.
As Federer and Djokovic flayed away at each other in the fifth set of what would eventually be the longest final in Wimbledon history, the ICC World Cup was down to the wire. Chasing New Zealand’s score of 241, England began the last over needing fifteen runs to win. Ben Stokes, who had delivered the infamous last over to Carlos Brathwaite in the 2016 ICC T20 Final, now faced Trent Boult, who had caught Stokes just three balls prior, only to step on the boundary rope and concede six runs instead.
Two dot balls were followed by a Stokes pull for six. The fourth ball was swiped into the deep, the batsmen turned for two, and as Stokes dived for the crease Martin Guptill’s throw ricocheted off of his outstretched bat and scooted past the wicketkeeper down to the boundary. The umpires consulted and awarded six runs. Three off of two required. Stokes loses two partners via the run out route off of both deliveries, trying in vain to extract braces out of single opportunities, as the New Zealanders kept their cool and fielded superbly. Scores tied at 241.
Super Over. Both sides score 15 runs in their Super Over and England wins the World Cup on account of having scored more boundaries in their innings. An anticlimax if ever there was one. It was a superb game of cricket, fitting for any final on the world stage, literally decided by a coin flip. Number of boundaries in an innings. What a pathetic way to determine a world title!
The cricket purists are even willing to overlook the controversial umpire error which occurred after the fourth delivery of the final over of the England innings, just before Federer and Djokovic were about to enter the tie break in the fifth set. Should it have been five or six runs? According to Rule 19.8, Overthrow or willful act of fielder; If the boundary results from an overthrow or the willful act of the fielder the runs scored shall be – any runs for penalties awarded to either side; the allowance for the boundary and the runs completed by the batsmen, together with the run in progress if they had already crossed at the instant of the throw or act. At the time of Guptill’s throw the batsmen had not crossed, a fact which could have quite easily been ascertained by television review.
While fans will bask in the memories of Hamilton’s masterful display and Djokovic outlasting Federer, who failed to convert two Championship points at 8 – 7 in the tie break, 13 – 12, the purists will argue that the correct result for the 2019 ICC World Cup Final between New Zealand and England should have been a tie and the two sides declared joint winners. The ICC needs to review this rule immediately.
