OK, so Uncle Wheaty predicted a World Cup err Cup and the Ashes in a clean sweep.
How confident are we about today’s game?
England v Australia Mens Cricket World Cup
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Your boys are in deep sh*t …
yes a bit ugly 3 for 91 looks better than 2 for 10 or 3 for 29
…though the inevitable fight back is on unfortunately.
I love it when a prediction starts to look like happening!
Yep a comprehensive win. That bowler for the west indies was exceptional.
Two wickets is hardly exceptional but the boy done good.
Woakes was the pick of the bowlers for me.
Looking forward to seeing Guptil out in the first 5 overs on Sunday and Williamson scoring a well deserved ton in a futile run chase.
He was the intimidator for me.
Presumably you mean the Barbados-born fast bowling British passport holder with an English mother. Pity Australia lost the Pakistan-born Australian passport holding batsman due to injury…
Yes, I guess that is a fair parallel Count.
And I guess it was the damn Pakistani, my namesake, who helped SA win over Australia, thereby putting them against England in the first place.
It’s not fair. Not fair!
Actually there was a time not long ago when almost half of the England side were ‘Saffers’, including two of its captains.
I remember writing on this blog a year or two ago that I thought England might be heading to the top of the heap after the mediocre Strauss years, and with (I thought) SA and Australia in a bit of a decline. For SA there will have to be one of those slow buildups now, and there’ll be a slew of retirements after this disappointing WC.
As of 21:47 GMT, extremely confident. 😉
Ohhhh !! Deep Joy.
… and, as England won, the Final is going to be live on Channel Four.
It was one of those rare games when pretty much everything went right for England. If the same thing happens on Sunday we should win unless the Kiwis top order fires for once.
Think everything has been more or less going right for England for a few years now in this form of cricket (excepting 2 games in this competition).
Officially, it’s England & Wales, dai.
But the official body Is the ECB not the ECWB.
Funny that.
Maybe ecwb is a swear word in Welsh!
The full name is actually the England & Wales Cricket Board, but they leave the ‘W’ out of the acronym.
And ireland, or did I miss something?
Bloody hell! What a finish!!
My hands are trembling.
Me too!
Oh… you’re talking about cricket.
That was good, wasn’t it!
I think I need a lay down!
You mean a lie down.
Unless it’s that bloody Bob Dylan again.
Very pleased that England won but it seems harsh on NZ that the deciding factor was boundaries rather than wickets lost after the 50 overs.
England were incredibly lucky. Not least the deflection off Stokes’s bat for an extra four as he attempted to complete a second run in the final over. Plus, NZ ran out of reviews, otherwise their last lbw would have been not out as well.
The deflection rule is an interesting one. If the ball had run into the outfield and not gone for four, the etiquette would be not to seek an advantage, and the batsmen wouldn’t have run. Is that correct? If so, then logically, you’d think if the ball does run away for four, the runs should be void also.
Actually, if you look at the batsmen, that’s exactly what happened. Stokes didn’t get up, and neither batsman attempted another run: no advantage was sought.
Under the old rules, NZ would have been the winners, wouldn’t they? If the scores were level, it went to wickets lost. I had no idea about the ‘super-over’. Like the bolted on rawk music, and the forced razzmatazz, it seems a bit of an unnecessary gimmick. But of course, it was great to have the opportunity to watch a fantastic game.
I’m obviously sympathetic to New Zealand but let’s not forget crap ICC rules also allowed them to finish 4th when Pakistan could have argued differently. Rules are rules crap ones or not.
Yes I suppose there were numerous incidents that could have decided it. I still do wonder though why NZ didn’t win after 50 overs, having conceded less wickets than England.
Because they didn’t score more runs.
Facetious, I know, but on pretty much every way you could choose to separate the two England would come out on top – net run rate through the competition, head to head to result, most games won in qualifying, final place in the group table…
Absolute hell of a match though. Huge sympathy to NZ, but well done to England.
Commiserations Kiwis. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Peter Jackson, Edmund Hillary, Lorde, Neil Finn, the boys from the Flight of the Conchords, Jonah Lomu, Jacinda Ardern. Your boys took a hell of a beating.
If the actual match was as exciting/nerve-wracking as watching the updates come up on the BBC Sport website I might actually have to watch the highlights on Channel 4.
I wouldn’t describe it as ‘a hell of a beating’. England won by the smallest possible of margins, having enjoyed a phenomenal amount of luck.
Ah Tigger. That “hell of a beating” line is from when Norway beat Engerland in football probably 30 years ago now, back in the day when that wasn’t supposed to happen. Some bonkers Norwegian commentator rattled through a list of , then, notable Brits (Winston Churchill, Maggie Thatcher etc) before concluding with”Your boys took a hell of a beating.” It’s often imitated normally when the underdogs have won but I guess Mr Tony San was employing artistic licence.
Still, brilliant game and feel a bit sorry for the kiwis. Tennis wasn’t too bad either.
I know where it comes from. England played crap that day. Today, NZ were fantastic. In Boult, they had the finest bowler. They played with tremendous dignity in the face of gross bad luck. For example, if Boult had managed to keep his foot off the ‘rope’, Stokes would have been out and unable to make those final runs. Part of me agrees with BC. It does seem odd that the rules rate boundaries as more important than wickets when it comes to settling a tie.
How did boundaries decide any thing? They played an extra over.
Because the scores were still level and under the rules, the tie breaker was boundaries scored in the whole game. Going into the super over NZ knew if it was still a draw they would have had to score something like a dozen boundaries in the super over to overcome it which would have made it moot, as well as impossible. It was score more or lose for them.
Maybe the old rules of having joint holders would have been fairer given this was a photo finish where you still couldn’t pick them apart. Doing it on boundaries or wickets lost both sound a bit random.
The kiwis could have won it in so many tiny moments. Boult stepping on the boundary rope being a big one, if he’d managed to toss that back in or even just limit the runs. And some of the flukier bits of the english innings. Also not putting Guptill in for the super over might have been an idea, harsh as it may be.
Sunday was right up there with Botham’s ashes at Headingley for me, probably ahead of it. Cricket providing two of the most exciting things I’ve ever watched in any sport or event of any kind. Who’d have thunk it.
Oh thanks Didn’t see it, misunderstood. I was driving and listening to BBC World Service covering simultaneously the last over of England’s innings and the first ever tie break decider in a Wimbledon final. Incredible symmetry.
It’s been one of those days when you feel sorry for people who don’t like sport. Imagine not being able to feel the thrill of the finale of this, or appreciating the skill and determination of Federer and Djokovic.
England beat all the other semi finalists – that’s a good indicator that the right team lifted the trophy, but boy they got a lucky break or two today. Morgan’s post-match line about NZ -‘We aspire to play our cricket the way they do” – we absolutely spot on.
Your concern is touching but I really don’t think I missed anything.
I’m sure you’re right about Federer and Djokovic. However, I find tennis irredeemably tedious. Personally, I spent much of the afternoon flicking between the cricket and the greatest annual sporting event on the planet, the Tour de France.
Cricket? Played it at school. Didn’t like it.
My Dad and I were discussing school cricket, and we both admitted our usual fielding position was as far from the wickets as possible, preferably on the side the batter was least likely to hit the ball to (whatever that side is called?)
I loved cricket at school. A nice little doze in the grass. Even when batting… because I’d get bowled out immediately.
“You’re not trying!” said the games teacher.
“You’re not as stupid as you look, sir!” I replied. In my head.
@tony-japanese : mid off, silly!
(Is that even right? Long stop was my favoured.)
Cricket at it’s finest. Such a close contest and dramatic ending only marred by a timing clash with the equally unbelievable Wimbledon Final. I was pacing between two tellys. Thanks also to Junior, for having the foresight to initiate this celebratory thread.
Yeah great @kalamo
I’m over the moon 😏
Genuine question. I missed the second half of the game. I key point is the ball hitting the bat causing 4 extra runs for a total of 6. But Ive read they had only run one run before the ball hit the bat for an additional 4. So that would be a total of 5.
What actually happened?
Well it would appear there may have been an error. Apparently due to the fielder having released the ball before the two batsmen crossed for the second run, after the ball went to the boundary it should have been 4 runs added to the one run as opposed to 2 runs, meaning 5 runs instead of 6
‘If the boundary results from an overthrow or from the wilful act of a fielder, the runs scored shall be any runs for penalties awarded to either side, and 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.’
Crucially on the way to trying to get the second run the fielder had released the ball before the batsmen had crossed
So what are they going to do about it? Have a replay?
probably best to just ignore it and hopefully no one else will notice
The ICC have been contacted for comment.
It’s the “at the instant of the throw or act.” bit that’s key here. The overthrow was not caused by the act of the initial throw, but by the (accidental) deflection from Stokes’ bat. At THAT point, they had crossed, so the second run counted.
If the ball hadn’t hit Stokes’ bat, the original throw would have gone through to the fielder (or perhaps gone through for overthrows if no one had backed up correctly), so the deflection was significant. The other thing to notice is that neither batsmen made an attempt to complete another run after the contact: they did not seek to gain advantage from the defection, even though the ball was still technically in play, not dead.
Thanks @illuminatus – that helps. As an English person in NZ I will be needing to handle these matters over the coming years. It’s also a good point that the batsmen didn’t seek to gain advantage by running following the accidental contact with the bat. They weren’t to know that it would race away for four.
Just thought I’d share a lovely comment from a New Zealander to a friend of mine based in Australia:
Australian – with the amount of whingeing coming from NZ, you’re beginning to sound like the poms!
NZ – This is nothing…wait til we lose the rugby!
The thought of us losing the rugby makes me glad I don’t live in NZ any more!
I worked with a bunch of rugby-obsessed people in 1999 in Auckland. The shock semifinal loss to France was midweek. The next day – no one said a word until the mid-morning tea break. And then once one of them started, the place erupted.