Either England are the best 50 over cricket team in the world or the luckiest. I choose the former. We've had plenty not go our way over the years.
Stokes was immense both in playing such a controlled innings and holding his nerve at the end and in the superover. The partnership with Buttler was the match winner both in the match and superover...
I was looking through the comments and worried you may have had a heart attack - how ****ing great was that?!
Mate, my heart was pounding as I realised we still had a chance, which was probably when we got that lucky deflection to add another 4. During the super over my heart was beating out of my chest. Must just say that luck always plays a part on the way to these kinds of victories. The Kiwis were lucky to pick up an extra point in the group stage when their game was rained off...... Etc.etc.
You can always console yourself with the knowledge that Stokes was born in New Zealand, I'm not sure if that is a good thing for you or not?
I watched the England innings in the pub, so wasn't in touch with this thread. Good fun reading back how many times Col declared that we had lost and how much of a bottler Stokes is. England got lucky on the day, but are deserved winners overall because they are simply the best 50 over team.
Jeffrey Archer was on Talksport today and said if he'd written a book with that sort of ending the publishers would have said come back with a believable ending. He also made a point of saying they should have had a 2nd superover with different players in the same way as a penalty shoot-out uses all the players, that way it's decided on the pitch...
Ok how about this..... According to Simon taufel who is widely regarded as the finest umpire this century England should only have got 5 runs from the deflection off stokes bat instead off 6 as the batsmen had not crossed at the time of the throw by the NZ lad and Rashid should have faced the 2nd last ball not stokes..... Now who said they knew the rules on this and who mentioned var? Discuss.....
I have no idea about such subtle cricket laws. However, I am sure that this match will be discussed for years, epecially in NZ. It may be similar to the Geoff Hurst "did it cross the line or not" goal from the 1966 world Cup final. I really would not surprised after such a dramatic finale. I am sure many Germans are still adament that the ball then did not cross the line.
As I explained during the thread, a lot of my negative posts are designed to make the opposite happen. Worked a couple of times too (lol). With regards to Stokes. I no longer believe him to be a bottler. He's proved me wrong on that score and yesterday he was magnificent with the bat. I do believe that he's not the most intelligent cricketer and that he needs to work on keeping the scoreboard ticking over and play less dot balls. He had the heart of a lion yesterday and completely carried the innings, along with Buttler to a lesser extent. Trust me, I've never been happier to be proved wrong than I was yesterday.
It was decided on the pitch. The more attacking side were ultimately rewarded. There has to be a final line somewhere.
Mmm, wasn't aware of that. Neither it seems was the current best umpire in the world, Erasmus, or any of the other officials.
Just read this too. Maybe not everyone knows the rules as well they think/should including yesterday’s team of umpires!
MCC’s law 19.8, which deals with overthrows, says: “If the boundary results from an overthrow... runs scored shall be any runs for penalties awarded... and allowance for the boundary, and runs completed by batsmen, together with the run in progress if they had already crossed at the instant of the throw or act.”
