The gut-wrenching final at Lord\u2019s, visceral, brutal, and explosive, was adjudged by a thoughtless, arbitrary number of boundaries rule, that actually overlooked which team had lost less wickets in a tie after 100 captivating tension-filled overs.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The World Cup should have been shared between England and New Zealand and it\u2019s still not too late to right a grievous wrong that so cruelly denied the gallant Kiwis.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
New Zealand coach Gary Stead is open to the idea of a shared World Cup if the ICC, with an open mind, decides to re-look \u00a0the events and circumstances of that epic Sunday that left millions of aficionados, cutting through barriers, feeling justice had not been done.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Former Sri Lankan World Cup winning coach Dav Whatmore echoed similar words and said, \u201cSharing the Trophy would be the right thing to do but I don\u2019t know whether it is possible. This is the first time I have heard of a game being decided on the basis of boundaries.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
New Zealand lost by zero runs in both regular play and the Super Over, and was, unlike England, not bowled out during normal play.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Then it emerged that the final over\u2019s pivotal moment – that left the luckless New Zealand devastated – when the ball rocketed off the desperately diving Ben Stokes\u2019 bat and shot past the ropes, was marred by a match-turning umpiring error.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The umpires awarded six runs which as celebrated umpire Simon Taufel revealed later, was a clear mistake. The batsmen had not crossed for the second run when Martin Guptill unleashed his throw and the umpires should have awarded England five runs and not six.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
This also meant Adil Rashid would have been on strike and not the influential Stokes. These \u2018game-changing\u2019 umpiring mistakes hurt New Zealand in a game of such fine margins.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The umpires could have taken their time and referred the contentional extra run to the television umpire. Surely, they would have been aware of the rules.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In a game as big as this, the ICC should have left nothing to chance. At least, it could have continued with Super Overs until a conclusive result was reached much like penalty kicks in football that go on till a winner is found. \u201cThis is actually a good idea,\u201d said Whatmore.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The never-say-die New Zealanders, gutsy, nerveless, skilful, full of grace and poise under extreme pressure, have been done in by a bizarre set of rules and questionable umpiring. Now, the ball is in ICC\u2019s court.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The gut-wrenching final at Lord’s, visceral, brutal, and explosive, was adjudged by a thoughtless, arbitrary number of boundaries rule, that actually overlooked which team had lost less wickets in a tie after 100 captivating tension-filled overs. The World Cup should have been shared between England and New Zealand and it’s still not too late to right a grievous wrong that so cruelly denied the gallant Kiwis. New Zealand coach Gary Stead is open to the idea of a shared World Cup if the ICC, with an open mind,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":18975,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[30,7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18974"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18974"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18974\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18976,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18974\/revisions\/18976"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}