New Zealand skipper Kane Williamson is yet to forget the dramatic loss which his team suffered in the 2019 World Cup final against England, saying deciding the result on boundary count was “not really cricket”. In the World Cup final played at the Lord’s on July 14, England was announced as the winner on account of their superior boundary count against the Black Caps after both the stipulated overs and the subsequent Super Over ended in a tie.
England had scored 26 boundaries in total in the entire duration of the match as compared to 17 by the Kiwis and was thus crowned as champions. As per the quotes in ESPNCricinfo, Williamson said, “I genuinely think that no one ever thought that was going to happen and it did. At times, you think about how some of those decisions are made; probably sitting in a room a little like this and throwing a few ideas around. And then for it to actually happen is a pretty scary thing.”
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He further added, “I guess it highlighted something and it will probably never happen again. It’s not really cricket and I think both teams appreciated that. It was hard to take. But at the same time those rules were already in place. I think everyone has played hundreds of games of cricket and never had one decided quite like that. What you sign up for. But, yeah, it’s no surprise that it’s changed.”
However, in October, the International Cricket Council (ICC) scrapped the controversial boundary count rule and stated that it will not be used in future ICC events.
The new rule said, “In group stages if the Super Over is tied, the match will be tied. In semi-finals and finals, there is one change to the Super Over-regulation in keeping with the basic principle of scoring more runs than the opponent to win, the Super Over will be repeated until one team has more runs than the other.”
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England and New Zealand are scheduled to play two Test matches beginning Thursday at the Bay Oval.
