| Tournament | Teams | Date | Venue | Score | Results |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ICC Cricket World Cup | England vs New Zealand | 14 July, 2019 | Lord's, London | New Zealand 241/8 England 241 | Match Tied (England won on boundary count) |
8.05pm Finally, England get their hands on the big prize. It could so easily have been New Zealand today, but you can't grudge Eoin Morgan's team. They're truly the best ODI side in the world, and if they had some holes in their combination before the tournament - the bowling attack conceding plenty, a tendency for their batsmen to crumble on bowling-friendly surfaces - those holes seem to have been filled now. They have two superfast wicket-takers for all conditions in Archer and Wood, and their batting looks so much more battle-hardened, as we saw today during that partnership between Ben Stokes and Jos Buttler.
And what of New Zealand? They've been through more close games than any other team in this tournament, and until today they'd been finishing on the right end of those results. Against Bangladesh, South Africa, West Indies, India - have I missed any? Today, in the closest finish imaginable - tied match, tied Super Over, losing on boundary count - they've come out on the wrong side. It's going to take a while for them to get this out of their systems.
We've had so much going on, so much to wrap up. Here's the final boundary count, the effective victory margin for England: 26-17. Is it the right way to separate tied teams? Who knows. It's the method we've got, and on this day it was England who triumphed. The smallest of margins.
Anyway, that is it from all of us for this World Cup. We've had dozens of people bringing you commentary, reports and live reports. We've had a fantastic team of correspondents travelling around England and Wales and bringing you the very best ringside views. There's all the people producing the video content. We have a fantastic desk that puts all this content together. On behalf of all of them, goodbye. We hope you've had as incredible a time as we have.
Eoin Morgan: "There wasn't a lot in that game, jeez. I'd like to comisserate with Kane. The fight, the spirit they showed. I thought it was a hard, hard game. This has been a four-year journey, we've developed a lot over those years, particularly the last two. To get over the line today means the world to us. The guys in the middle keep us cool, the way they play, the experience. It's calming at times. Not a lot between the teams. Just delighted we're lifting the trophy today. As long as he wasn't too cooked [sending Stokes back out for the Super Over]. Full credit to those two boys and Jofra. Every time he plays, he improves. The world is really at his feet at the moment."
Kane Williamson is the Player of the Tournament. "Look, it certainly wasn't just one extra run," he says. "So many small parts in that match that could have gone either way as we saw. Congratulations to England on a fantastic campaign. It's been challenging, the pitches have been a little different to what we expected. Lots of talk of 300-plus scores, but we haven't seen many of those. I'd like to thank the New Zealand team for the fight they showed to keep us in the tournament, and get us this far. A tie in the final. So many parts to it. The players are shattered at the moment. Obviously it's devastating. They've performed at such a high level through the tournament."
He continues, on the match: "We were weighing up the overheads versus the pitch, it was on the drier side. runs on the board, as it proved, was going to be challenging. We would have liked another 20, but in a World Cup final we'll take 240-250. Both sides showed a lot of heart, a lot of fight. For it to go to the last ball, and the last ball of the next match, it was pretty hard. That [the Stokes deflection] was a bit of a shame, wasn't it? You just hope it doesn't happen in moments like that. You can nitpick, but perhaps it just wasn't meant to be for us. It is perhaps tough to review the match, and such small margins."
Ben Stokes is the Player of the Match. He gets a handshake from Sachin Tendulkar, who's part of the presentation party. "I'm pretty lost for words," he says. "All the hard words 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. Jos and I knew if we'd be there close to the end, New Zealand would be under pressure. Not the way I wanted to do it, ball going off my bat like that, I apologised to Kane. We backed the new kid, Jofra Archer, the talent that he's got, he showed the world today. The lads, in this one-day team, the Test team, my family, their support has been massive. Now I'm just looking forward to tonight, mate."