England crowned world champions after Super Over thriller

LONDON: England’s cricketers wrote their names into the history books at Lord’s, winning their first World Cup title in a final that will go down as one of the most dramatic ever produced in team sport.

It seemed as though nothing could separate them from New Zealand, with the sides battling to an unprecedented tie, both sides locked on 241 after 100 overs of nerve-shredding tension that cast Ben Stokes as the home side’s hero of the hour.

That paved the way for a super over, a six-ball shoot-out that had only occurred 11 times in international history and never before in an ODI.Incredibly, the teams went blow-for-blow once again, Stokes and Jos Buttler hitting 15 off Trent Boult before Jofra Archer conceded 14 off his first five deliveries.

The Barbados-born bowler, the least experienced player on either side, held his nerve as Martin Guptill forced the ball into the off-side and came back for a second that would have taken the trophy.

Enter Jason Roy, who picked up cleanly despite unimaginable pressure and hurled a flat, decisive throw towards Buttler, who scattered the stumps as Guptill scrambled.Tied once again, England triumphed on account of boundaries scored in the original 50-over match, a technocratic decider in a contest that proved impossible to settle any other way.

In the end England’s 22 fours and two sixes proved the difference, besting the Black Caps’ tally of 14 and two but they are just numbers, and do scant justice to the emotional, occasionally controversial and endlessly replayable events that played out on this famous ground.

Rarely has the tension at this storied stadium reached such emphatic peaks and rarely has a winning team celebrated with such gusto, the game and all the prizes that go with it having seemingly disappeared from their grasp on several occasions.

Morgan and his team-mates were cheered to the rafters by the ecstatic capacity crowd at Lord’s as they joined Bobby Moore’s 1966 footballers and Martin Johnson’s rugby union team of 2003 as England’s World Cup winners.

England’s triumph was the culmination of a remarkable rise over the past four years. Following their dismal first round exit at the 2015 World Cup, England’s then director of cricket Andrew Strauss embarked on a root-and-branch reform of their one-day international set-up.

Adopting an aggressive game-plan under Morgan and Australian coach Trevor Bayliss, England’s rebuilding plan paid off spectacularly. They had already climbed to the top of the ODI rankings heading into the tournament and, after plenty of highs and lows over the past six weeks, they eventually justified their tag as the bookmakers’ pre-tournament favourites to win the World Cup.

It was not an easy ride for England, whose defeats against Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Australia in the group stage put them on the brink of elimination. But Morgan’s men kept their cool to defeat India and New Zealand and book a last-four spot before crushing Australia in the semi-finals and surviving one final test of their nerve against New Zealand.

While England celebrated, it was another heart-breaking loss for New Zealand, who also finished as runners-up in the previous World Cup in 2015 after losing to Australia in the final.