Cricket was ultimate winner at Lord’s

ISLAMABAD: The game of cricket was the ultimate winner at Lord’s following breath-taking World Cup Cricket final that went down to wire. Predicting the ultimate winners, even in extended final, was as difficult as anyone could have hoped and guessed.

The final between the ultimate champions and hosts country England and spirited, unyielding New Zealand has left countless moments of glory and excitements that would not only stay in the memories of cricket fans for ever but also have become part of record books for more than one reasons. This is first ever World Cup final that would be more remembered not as which team has won it but how it was played and decided. When all other options to pick the winners of the Cup died down, the boundary hitting formula came into the play. No one could have imagined prior to the start of the final that rule of boundaries would be the most important of factors and would ultimately decide the champion.

Though England turned out to be the luckier one, New Zealand would surely have won hearts of millions of fans the way they fought till the last. The Black Caps attitude of not giving in was something never seen before on a cricketing field. Fighting for every delivery and making hundred percent efforts to seize the available opportunity was something that surely have shown others as how the game’s standard could be raised to such an ultimate level.

Though winning the Cup was never their destiny, Kiwis surely have won majority of moments during the epic and heart-throbbing final. Putting up a fighting score under trying conditions and making every efforts during the next fifty overs to defend that total against a powerful and inform batting line up was something never seen before. Curtailing three’s in two and two’s into one was something that only Kiwis can do with their outstanding fielding. When it comes to fielding, Kiwis are surely stood at the front row as the team saved at least 20 to 25 runs through their share guts on field during almost every match of the Cup.

To lose such a close final at the end tuned out to be an anticlimax for the team but what New Zealand achieved from this World Cup is unforgettable.

Nothing taking out from England’s equally super efforts, even the loss could not make the Kiwis a weaker opponent. What England did, Kiwis emulate that even in a better way, possibly knowing little that it would not be runs, wickets or super over but the boundaries that would determine the fate of the Cup.