The World Cup 2019 got recently concluded and the ending was so dramatic that it gave me a mixed feeling. On one hand, I was thrilled to see two new teams playing the finals and the chance for one of them to win their maiden World Cup trophy.
On the other hand, I felt sad for New Zealand coming this close to winning their maiden cricket World Cup but only to be denied by few dubious ICC rules that need to be revisited.
But as I was glued to the television screen till the end of the post-match ceremony, I was amazed by the lack of emotion or any sense of anguish on the face of Kane Williamson, the New Zealand captain. He and his team took this defeat in their stride and acknowledged that the England team was the rightful owner of the World Cup.
Now, this should go down as one of the closest games in the history of cricket and that too on an ICC tournament final.
But that was not the only one. To me, there were many moments during the entire tournament where we saw close games, good sportsmanship, and also lesser-known teams playing well.
So, I would like to share some of the best moments that I felt this World Cup was great. Here are some of them that are arranged in random order:
#1. England winning the world cup:
As mentioned, at the beginning of my blog post, the World Cup final between England and New Zealand should go down in the history of the cricket world cup as one of the best matches of all time.
The finals were played at Lords, the home of cricket. The wicket, in the words of commentators, was a great wicket to bat on. As a result, Kane Williamson won the toss and took the right decision to bat first. But the English pacers bowled well. So, New Zealand scored 241 runs in what thought to have been an easy chase for England that had strong batting line up.
But in the end, we witnessed a humdinger of a match that swung in both ways like a pendulum. Ben Stokes and Josh Butler scored a crucial 5th wicket century partnership that brought England closer to the game.
Just when we thought that it should be all England’s game from there on, there was another twist in the game. Loki Fergusson took the wicket of Butler and I felt that it will be New Zealand’s win. But Stokes survived the scare and dragged it till the last over where he was lucky to have got his bat on the way of the ball thrown by Guptill towards the wicketkeeper and that getting deflected to the boundary. After a long discussion between umpires, it was decided that it was six.
I feel that was the turning point of the match and in the end, England manages to tie on the Super Over and eventually winning the world cup on the rule of having more boundaries then New Zealand.
#2. Mohammad Shami’s Hat-Trick Against Afghanistan
I feel the match between Afghanistan versus India during the world cup 2019 could have been the biggest ever upset in cricketing history if it wasn’t for Mohammad Shami’s hat-trick that helped to beat Afghanistan.
Mohammad Nabi scored a half-century and was looking good to bring Afghanistan and un-expected victory until he hit one up only for Hardik Pandya to take a beautiful catch and allow Shami to take the remaining wickets. This is one of the great moments in this year’s cricket world cup.
#3. Carlos Brathwaite’s century going in vain against New Zealand:
It was a heart-breaking moment for Carlos Brathwaite to have a scored a great century against New Zealand to give a ray of hope to the Windies that were facing a huge defeat only to end up losing by 5 runs.
At one stage, West Indies were 164 for the loss of seven wickets and it was curtains for them. With the Kiwi bowlers, bowling really well, it was good to see a fightback from the player but it was too little too late.
To me, this goes as another key moment that impacted the table big way. Because, at the start of the tournament, West Indies were looking like a team that could reach the semis after their great performance in their opening match against Pakistan.
Conclusion:
There were many other great moments that took place in this world cups as well but I feel that these three moments played a key role in making this world cup more interesting. There were no clear favorites this time and for a change, it was also wonderful to see a new nation winning the tournament rather than the usual strong team like Australia winning.