Sport sometimes throws up the grand, the heroic, the tragic and the stupid. WC Final 2019 included all of them. In a match where all the clutch moments went against New Zealand, England prevailed in the most ridiculous circumstances.
The key elements of the Game, regardless of the length of the contest, are runs and wickets. They are the arbiters of all results. New Zealand scored as many runs as England and took more wickets. It’s that simple. The way the Final was therefore decided, illuminates the modern Game, where batting is more prized, more supported by rules and equipment and it’s gladiators more feted. The public, we are told, demand it be so.
That, of course, is a pile of steaming Winx left overs but with bigger bats, protective clothing, smaller boundaries, fielding restrictions and the confidence to know even if your castle might be disturbed, you can stay on at the crease and plunder, even average plonkers are at an advantage.
It is a blight on any notion of cricket being a contest between bat and that other thing.
It’s a crazy, lop-sided case of jaundice now legislated in the Game and as a result of WC19, forever a stain.
Boundaries, so much easier to come by, are apparently more important than wickets.
Commiserations to both teams. Your efforts deserved a nobler conclusion.
Oh well, at least it wasn’t decided by the combined ramblings of those English maths professors, Duck Duck Goose and Lose-Us.
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