A week after England’s historic World Cup victory, captain Eoin Morgan is still struggling to make sense of the incredible end, when there was so little separating the two finalists.
England’s men’s team lifted their first World Cup owing to a superior boundary count to New Zealand after both the regulation match and the first-ever ODI Super Over finished tied at Lord’s.
“I’m not sure winning it makes it any easier. I don’t think it’s fair to have a result like that when there’s very little between the sides,” Morgan was quoted as saying by the Times.
“I don’t think there was one moment that you could say: ‘That actually cost the game there.’ It was quite balanced,” he added.
Also read: Ben Stokes’s tale of redemption
It would seem just finishing on the winning side of the result would suffice but Morgan feels troubled by the manner of the win but concedes it would have been worse if he was on the losing side.
“A little bit (troubled), because there’s no defining moment that you’d say: ‘Yes, we thoroughly deserved it.’ It’s just been crazy. It would be more difficult to lose, of course.”
“I’m black and white. I’m normally going: ‘I know. I was there, that happened. But I can’t stick my finger on where the game was won and lost.”
However, there was one turning point in the game during the last over of the English innings, when a throw by Martin Guptill deflected from Ben Stokes’ bat and crossed the boundary rope and the hosts were awarded six runs. A later examination of the rules suggests England should have received five runs.
“I actually feel more comfortable about it having watched all of the game now,” Morgan said.
The England skipper has also been in touch with his New Zealand counterpart, Kane Williamson, with the duo trying to make sense of the drama that transpired at Lord’s on July 14.
“Dealing with the aftermath has been quite mixed really. I spoke to Kane over the last couple of days on numerous occasions and none of us has come up with a rational explanation as to the various times we gave them the game and they gave it back to us. Like me, he can’t get his head around everything.”
For his part, Williamson, though evidently unhappy with the tie-breaker, has maintained that there was not much else his side could have done to emerge triumphant.
“What did they win it on, boundaries? While the emotions are raw it’s pretty hard to swallow when two teams work so hard to get to this moment in time,” he said.
“We had two attempts to separate us and still couldn’t – it is what it is, the rules are there at the start and they probably never thought they would have to use them,” the NZ skipper had said in the aftermath of the result.
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