World Cup 2019 Final: Will be apologizing for the controversial overthrow for the rest of my life, says Ben Stokes
What's the story?
Ben Stokes deservedly won the Man of the Match award yesterday after playing the innings of his lifetime. His gutsy knock of 84 runs in the run chase and Super Over contributions helped his dream to achieve their longtime dream of winning the World Cup.
In the post-match presentation, Ben Stokes offered a word of consolation to the opposition skipper, Kane Williamson for the chaos in the final over.
In case you didn't know...
The World Cup 2019 final between New Zealand and England turned out to be a nail-biting cliffhanger. The game went beyond the imaginations and exceeded the expectations. For the first time in the history of the World Cup, the final was tied and went to the Super Over. Interestingly, the Super Over was also tied, and England won the match based on boundary count.
The heart of the matter
Chasing a modest target of 242 set by New Zealand, England fumbled in the run chase and almost lost their way in the end. 15 runs were required from the final six deliveries. Trent Boult’s inch-perfect Yorker length deliveries in the first two balls produced two golden dot balls for New Zealand. However, Stokes dispatched the third ball for six when Boult missed his length.
On the fourth delivery, Stokes mistimed a full-toss to deep mid-wicket and attempted a second run. Martin Guptill ran in from the deep and fired the ball towards the wicket-keeper end. To avoid the run-out, Stokes dived at full stretch into the striker’s end. In the process, the throw from Guptill hit Stokes bat and deflected towards the boundary for four runs. As a result, six runs were scored in that delivery, and the deflection proved to be the turning point of the match.
In the post-match presentation, Stokes apologized to Williamson for the final over chaos.
"I said to Kane I'll be apologizing for that for the rest of my life. It was not the way I wanted to do it.. the ball going off my bat like that. I apologized to Kane."
Besides, he expressed his joy of winning the trophy after four years of intense hard work.
"All the hard work's that's gone in over these four years, this is where we aspired to be. To do it with such a game, I don't think there will be another like this in the history of cricket,"
What's next?
It is fair to say that Stokes’ actions were not deliberate on the evidence of the replays. Irrespective of the mini-chaos in the last over, the final between New Zealand and England will arguably go down as the best match in the history of ODIs.
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