Nothing is fair or right in the world

It’s Sunday 14th July. I am dressed from head to foot in Blackcaps cricket paraphernalia. The World Cup Final has arrived.

It will turn out to be the greatest day of cricket in the history of the planet. In fact, so much happens (generally at NZ’s expense) that it is unlikely that ANY sporting event in future will ever come close to reaching the CWC19 Final’s heights.

First up though, if you’re reading this from the future, there’s no good news to report. England is given the Cricket World Cup at the end of the day because, well, there is no reason. Maybe because they were hosting?

The laws of cricket involve a team batting first and setting a target of runs for the opposition to beat. England failed to beat our total and were all out in trying to do so. You’d imagine therefore that we had won the Cricket World Cup…

Not so.

Just ‘cos.

Don’t argue.

NZ set a competitive target of 241/8 on an incredibly lively pitch that was difficult to bat on all day. The ball swung for our entire innings and in fact only calmed down a bit when the sun came blazing out around 3:30pm. Coincidentally this would also be when Ben Stokes arrived to upset the apple cart.

Here’s the list of terrible things that happened to us on the day:

  • Martin Guptill reviews the single most plumb LBW decision ever.
  • It’s not Kane that needs that review back but Ross as he’s given out LBW to a ball disappearing over third man. This should have been the point I knew things were going to end badly.
  • The tail collapses and we score just 3 runs off the final over.
  • Mitchell Santner doesn’t even try to hit the last ball!
  • Trent Boult traps Roy LBW first ball – it isn’t given out. We are forced to review and Roy survives by umpire call. This will be telling. The 20 or so balls Roy faced would have destroyed Root and Morgan.
  • Colin the Big Man drops a relatively easy C&B chance of Bairstow on 18. He will go on to get 36.
  • Almost none of our diving, sliding sprawls across the turf prevent a four today. Again this will be telling. Just one of those and we win the CWC.
  • Trent somehow steps on the rope taking Ben Stokes in the deep. Instead of being 0 it becomes a 6. The heat of the moment I guess but safety first might have seen him pat it to the ground and give up just 1 or 2 runs.
  • An impossible 15 runs off the last over becomes possible when Ben Stokes ‘accidentally’ gets his bat in the way of the throw to run him out. The ball ricochets to the boundary and is given as 6 despite this being impossible and the most he should receive is 5. Anyway, interfering with the throw is OUT but not if you are from representing England.
  • Ben Stokes is from NZ. If he was a normal human being he’d be playing for us. Even if he hated NZ he should never be playing for England. Why would he want this to happen to us?

I’ve missed a bunch out as my memory is failing me. Just one of these changes and we win. Even after all this the scores end up tied and therefore we win the World Cup.

Nope.

There’s a Super Over.

It’s as ridiculous as it sounds. An introduction from T20.

The Super Over ends up being tied too. 15-15 each after Martin Guptill, hollowed out from a terrible run of batting form, just misses making two off the last ball.

Another T20 thing is the glorification of boundaries which a tied Super Over celebrates even further. You don’t want to know what happens if the number of boundaries was the same. Anyway, with not enough boundaries (27-16), because we gained our runs in a safe sensible manner, we are apparently beaten.

There will never be a greater cricket match nor a more disheartening one all at the same time.

Sport has delivered NZ some truly crushing blows over the years. There’s the underarm incident, the Danny Morrision LBW, the 1999 semifinal RWC, the RWC 2007 quarterfinal against France, the 1995 final against Sth Africa, the Americas Cup loss in 2013 (from 8-1 up), etc. But this trumps the lot. Without losing, we’ve lost. Without being beaten, we are vanquished.

Kane has been magnificent about it since, refusing to blame luck, poor decisions, or the gods. The bloke is a trooper and a top NZ’er.

And yet luck seems to have been against us the entire tournament.

lucky incidents in the cricket world cup

Jimmy summed it all up in a great tweet the next day.

Nothing is fair or right but in my heart, the Blackcaps will always be the Cricket World Cup 2019 winners. Played boys.

David Edgar