Cricket World Cup 2019

[Ray de Galles]

Well, what an extraordinary, exhausting game. There's been plenty of sporting drama around, like the Champions League last season, but I can't think of too many finals in any sport that could rival that.

Lots of little moments to pick over, but really there's no point. The rules were known, there weren't any VAR-type howlers, no underarms or forward passes or Wembley-Tors, so it was only unfair in the way that sport often is, not unfair in the sense of rigging and cheating. England were lucky, as NZ would have been equally lucky if the roles were reversed. So it goes.

Even I can't begrudge England that win, oh how I'd like to try, because witnessing such an absolutely insane, tense, almost surreal sporting event was just astounding. What sport is all about despite, as you say, the final nature of the victory being unfair in the way great contests are often decided in an unfair way.

I was lucky enough to snag a third ticket on Friday so now have an extremely happy (and still pretty stunned) England-supporting son & wife and sharing it with them only added to the wonderful nature of it all.

[San Bernardhinault]

I feel absolutely terrible for NZ, who had the game won only to tie it thanks to the fact that Stoke's dive gave four overthrows. That's something I don't think I've ever seen before, and to see it happen on the third-last ball of a world cup final is nuts. And then to lose it on a stat that they would never have thought to play for, rather than through cricketing - although, as everyone has said, they knew by the time they played the super-over, so it's not some kind of fiddle. Or not being aware of a D/L score, or a run rate calculation doing crazy stuff. It's just extraordinary bad luck.

[ad hoc]

for work reasons, I stayed as long as I could watching that but I needed to go...and it ended up with me forced to leave the screen with England needing 24 off the last 2 overs. It seemed highly unlikely, but I had no way of knowing, what had happened - I didn't have internet, and I knew nobody I was with would find out the score (nor care). I got back to my room about 15 minutes ago, and miraculously managed to find a highlights video without finding out the score or the winners. i didn't get quite the same tension, because those last two overs were rushed through a bit and I only saw about 4 or 5 balls from them, and then the whole of the super over. Fuck. Ing. Hell. What a finish. I'm still breathless.

[Nocturnal Submission]

for work reasons, I stayed as long as I could watching that but I needed to go...and it ended up with me forced to leave the screen with England needing 24 off the last 2 overs. It seemed highly unlikely, but I had no way of knowing, what had happened - I didn't have internet, and I knew nobody I was with would find out the score (nor care). I got back to my room about 15 minutes ago, and miraculously managed to find a highlights video without finding out the score or the winners. i didn't get quite the same tension, because those last two overs were rushed through a bit and I only saw about 4 or 5 balls from them, and then the whole of the super over. Fuck. Ing. Hell. What a finish. I'm still breathless.

It was literally one of those games, or finishes, that would be rejected as a drama plotline for being utterly silly and unbeliveable.

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

I feel absolutely terrible for NZ, who had the game won only to tie it thanks to the fact that Stoke's dive gave four overthrows. That's something I don't think I've ever seen before, and to see it happen on the third-last ball of a world cup final is nuts. And then to lose it on a stat that they would never have thought to play for, rather than through cricketing - although, as everyone has said, they knew by the time they played the super-over, so it's not some kind of fiddle. Or not being aware of a D/L score, or a run rate calculation doing crazy stuff. It's just extraordinary bad luck.

Yeah I've got mixed feelings about this too and I didn't realise until the start of the super overs that that was going to come into play, and I guess most people didn't as super overs themselves are very rare occurrences. Cricket is a game of stats and one way or another you win or lose by stats - theres a lot on twitter about the different ways England would have otherwise won (e.g. placing in the group stage, run rate in the tournament), which conveniently ignores firstly that NZ took more wickets in the game itself, and secondly that a second bout of super overs could have taken place. But on the other hand the rules would have been laid out and the modern game clearly wants to see more boundaries, so it's not inconsistent that they should be rewarded, and it is cricketing ultimately.

[Ray de Galles]

Guptill will be haunted, the poor guy. The overthrows were decisive and he couldn't get 2 off the last ball.

In all the chaos, I didn't realise it was Guptil with the overthrows. Was he a strange choice for the Super Over, isn't de Grandhomme more of the kind of big hitter you'd want?

Who was it that seemed to have stopped Stokes' six but fell back on the boundary rope? I felt awful for them too but, again, making out detail by that point was nearly impossible.

[Greenlander]

Trent Boult was the one who stepped on the rope. I guess more clear thinking would have seen him just push it towards Guptill who I think was near him but knowing it was Stokes' wicket and the match.

[diggedy derek]

Stokes was heard to say “you’ve just caught the World Cup, but unfortunately your foot was on the boundary.”

[Logan Mountstuart]

Losing fewer wickets used to be the tie-breaker in some one-day competitions, didn't it? Not a whinge (well, not a serious one), arguably fairer than a super over, but far less gripping for the punters, if that's what they're going for.

I'd never even heard of the Super Over before today. In every one day tournament I've ever known, the only way you could get a tie is when runs are equal and wickets lost are equal. NZ would have won by 8 lost against 10.

When did this change? What do they do in the IPL, one day internationals?

[San Bernardhinault]

Of course, if wickets were in play as a decider, England players probably wouldn't have run themselves out on those last two balls, first trying to keep Stokes on strike, when a single would still have tied it; and second trying to get the second on the final ball.

[Janik]

I'd never even heard of the Super Over before today. In every one day tournament I've ever known, the only way you could get a tie is when runs are equal and wickets lost are equal. NZ would have won by 8 lost against 10.

When did this change? What do they do in the IPL, one day internationals?

Quite a few years ago now. I don't think wickets lost was a tie-breaker for very long or in all that many competitions. Today was the fifth tie in World Cup history. Of the previous four, only one (the famous Australia-South Africa one) had both teams losing identical numbers of wickets (both all out).
IPL? super overs
One day internationals? if it's not a knock-out, accept the tie (same as if you accept a washout)

The English Cup competitions used to use a bowl-off. One bowler from each side has six balls at a single stump. The most direct hits wins. The super over is at least a better idea than that.

[Janik]

Oh, and one of the other tied matches involved Ireland losing the same number of wickets as Pakistan from the same number of balls faced but scoring nine more runs...

[jason voorhees]

Well, that was fucking nuts. How do you make a Wimbledon final between the two best players ever going into the first ever final set tie break the less exciting story of the day?

Or Lewis setting the record for most British Grand Prix wins?

I'm about to smoke my Churchill cigar whilst toffing my bowler cap whilst humming Hail To The Queen whilst watching a Doctor Who marathon whilst etc etc.

[tee rex]

It seems pretty clear that the rules have to change (even if they never have to be applied, until the 2059 final which the robots win).

Super over: fine. It's like other tie-breaks in sport, you play a truncated version of the game (golf extra hole, rugby league golden point, penalties etc).

The second tie-break must logically either be going forward or looking back. So, play on to get a result (another over) OR have some form of countback. If the latter, then any number of options is better than boundaries. Some would favour England, like the group game between the teams or final placing in group. (I like the idea of yellow cards, so Jason Roy loses the World Cup, but that may be a very biased outlier).

It doesn't matter, because it will never happen again, but it is remarkable that a bunch of suits were given the task of devising a formula for their showpiece and came up with this one. Or left it with the interns while they adjourned for brandy and cigars.

[hobbes]

I'm not sure why boundaries as a count back are such a bad thing. It's supposed to encourage entertaining cricket (for those who need the sugar rush of boundaries.)
It's as good or as bad as anything else.

[tee rex]

I can't see how one form of scoring in one game is a better tie-breaker than results of cricket matches. Why not fewest dot balls? Most catches?

You could decide sporting tournaments on the number of aces or birdies or shots on target or 3-pointers in basketball. All crowd-pleasing moments but less than the whole. And nobody in the two teams would have been devising their tactic for this particular decider. It changes the sport from what it was being played over 100 overs, to an accident.

[Janik]

Any of these are arbitrary, including the previous rule that whoever finished higher in the pool/super sixes progressed in the event of a tie. That was the situation in place in '99 when Donald was run out. Australia's possession of the tie-breaker was down to a marginally superior net run rate from the super six stage, the two teams having been level on points and wins in that.
If it had been such a rule yesterday, England would have started the match knowing a win or tie gave them the World Cup whenever that applied, be it at the end of the 50 overs or if those were tied after a super over. As it was, England only got the first breaker in their favour for the super over. The commentators were certainly aware before either side began the extra balls that New Zealand had to win outright and England only needed the tie. I hope it was similar for the NZ players.

What you have got is a concept mismatch between cricket, where no-one wins is a perfectly acceptable and usual result, and a knock-out tournament where a match must produce a winner and a loser. Football, another sport where draws are common, also struggles with this. The new deciding set breaker at the Tennis yesterday, however, bemuses nobody. Tennis always finishes with a decisive result so a method of finding that without playing forever is easy to live with.

[Kevin S]

Well bloody hell. Was convinced that England were going to fall well short of the total to be honest but a combination of a performance for the ages from Stokes and some dumb luck got us to the line. Annoyingly I ended up missing the last few regular overs as our daughter went suddenly hideously naughty (in that way five year olds can when they realise everyone else in the house is finding the cricket more interesting) and I had to go and put her to bed before running down to be told by my wife and son about the craziness I'd missed and that it had gone to a Super Over.

Agree, FWIW, that the boundaries thing is quite silly compared with the obvious alternatives of another Super Over or a shared trophy. Or even a replay. So I feel quite bad for New Zealand - hopefully it will be third time lucky next time for them, assuming India can't stitch it up completely in their favour. I mean, after six weeks of competition, it came down to this margin:



Nothing between them.

So hopefully being world champions in both women's and men's cricket really gives the sport the boost it's looking for; for more families in grounds, more games in the park, more talk in school and work. Most people agree there's too much football - summertime should be cricket time. But we need the ECB to stop fucking around, and we need more days like yesterday (well, as near as will be humanly possible) being shown live to the nation.

So, day 3 in Chelmsford today on the County thread, BBC commentary on the web and streamed live on YouTube. And Somerset facing an uphill battle at Headingley with the same coverage. The County Championship probably won't come down to a two metre margin in September but it might not be far off.

[diggedy derek]

This boundaries scored thing is somewhat arbitrary of course, but wickets down seems unsatisfactory to me for two reasons, firstly as England were tactically sacrificing wickets at such a rate at the end that it would seem a bit random to then use this as a deciding factor (a bit like deciding American football on number of time outs left or something), and also because if you used wickets there would be every chance you'd then end up with that tied also (highly possible yesterday)

A super over is good, like tie breaks in tennis, the game in microcosm. I would have loved it if it could have been shared in this 'golden tie' situation, but we all know sporting bodies don't really roll like that.

[longeared]

England played yesterday knowing that wickets lost wouldn't be a factor and there would have been a different approach if they had - they lost four wickets to the final ten balls. Archer had the last ball of the 49th over and both TV and radio referred to this as a free hit - he took a swing and got bowled, he'd presumably have blocked it if the loss of the wicket had been a potential tiebreaker. Similarly Stokes was quite happy to burn up Rashid off the penultimate ball.

Having a six and a half week long tournament with no outright winner would have been Peak Cricket.

[Snake Plissken]

Not entirely sure why people are getting so wound up about a situation that is likely to happen in, what, <1% of games? If that. There is always going to be an outlier, and trying to rule around that would undoubtedly have a knock-on effect elsewhere. (I mean, I would have thought a second Super Over would be a reasonable idea, but then wouldn't that add on at least 20 minutes as the light is disappearing? I mean, England got a 2 because the fielder lost the ball in the setting sun.)

England had enough luck to win several World Cups and Test series combined. They've got some serious karmic payback due for the next decade or so. But it was amazing drama.

[diggedy derek]

I think the biggest piece of luck of all was the first ball of England's innings. That was out with a capital O. You want umpires to be giving those. The context I think made him hesitate.

[Duncan Gardner]

Not entirely sure why people are getting so wound up about a situation that is likely to happen in, what, <1% of games?

Come on. You have to understand/ indulge the ABE sports fan community...

[Hot Orange]

I'm not sure why boundaries as a count back are such a bad thing. It's supposed to encourage entertaining cricket (for those who need the sugar rush of boundaries.)
It's as good or as bad as anything else.

For many, there's at least as much to admire in taking the ones and twos to keep the score ticking over as there is in hitting the odd boundary. New Zealand will have had more scoring shots, presumably, and England's innings included three consecutive maidens, so it seems a bit of a contradiction for New Zealand to fall foul of a rule designed to encourage entertaining batting. And why should the boundary countback be relevant after a super-over but not at the end of the regulation innings? It all seems terribly arbitrary and an unsatisfactory way to determine the winners.

What an event, though. Wow.

[Janik]

A shared trophy would be regarded by many as an unsatisfactory outcome for a Cup competition that lasted weeks on end. There needed to be a champion at the end of this.

Wickets down is against the very essence of limited overs cricket. The long form game is about maximising the amount of runs your team can score for your ten wickets. And take as long as you want to do that. But that does tend to take rather a long time and encourage defensive play. In ODIs the resource management calculations are different. They were created to produce more attacking batting. Batsman still have to have regard for retaining their wicket particularly early in their teams knock, but only going fully defensive in very rare circumstances. They generally have to take a more aggressive risk-reward calculation.
If a team still has wicket resources left at the end of their 50 overs, it could be argued they were playing overly cautiously - they should have played more aggressive and more risky shots. Think a similar logic to Innes Ireland's description of Colin Chapman's approach to engineering F1 cars "Colin's idea of a Grand Prix car was it should win the race and, as it crossed the finishing line, it should collapse in a heap of bits. If it didn't do that, it was built too strongly." Similarly, the perfect ODI innings ends with a flurry of wickets as players increasingly throw the bat late on, and the last man being run out on the final ball pushing for one more extra run. It would be odd, in that type of game, to effectively reward a team for taking a slightly inefficient and more cautious approach than that. That is why runs scored only is a reasonable criteria for determining clean wins in an limited overs game - your innings ends at the 300th legal ball come what may, so why should you benefit from having wicket still standing at that point? It isn't a measure of having played better in this format of the game.

The super over does betray it's origins in T20. It isn't quite the game in microcosm, any more than T20 is. What it is is a slogging contest. Note the batsmen that both teams sent out to face the first ball, Stokes and Neesham. The whole fevered atmosphere around that part of the game was very reminiscent of the strident loudness and crassness of the IPL. It would be a more balanced contest of bat and ball if it was one wicket, not two.