England win Cricket World Cup after Super Over downs New Zealand

England have beaten New Zealand to win the Cricket World Cup after 50 overs failed to separate the two teams.

The Black Caps set a target of 242 with Henry Nicholls topscoring on 55, and it went right to the wire as two successive sixes from Ben Stokes took England to within two runs.

With two balls remaining, Adil Rashid was run out as England added one more.

It went all the way down to the final ball. Two to win for England, one for a super over. The super over is exactly what happened. One run taken on the final ball.

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Stokes and Buttler came out for the Super Over. Stokes added three with the first ball, before Buttler hit deep midwicket for one.

A boundary from Stokes, and one more with the fourth ball, took England’s score to nine before Buttler added two more. Buttler found the gap with the final ball to find the boundary and set a score of 15.

Jofra Archer took the ball for England, with Martin Guptill and James Neesham batting for New Zealand.

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He bowled a wide to open, a freebie for New Zealand. And two on the next ball gave New Zealand three runs off one ball.

The second went all the way out the park for six from Neesham who added two more to put New Zealand needing five runs from three balls.

Two more from Neesham and the pressure rose on Archer.

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One more put Guptill on strike for the final ball. Two to win. With Guptill sprinting towards the wicket for a second, he was run out with some excellent fielding. Buttler got the ball back to stumps on time and England won the World Cup by virtue of scoring more boundaries.

Stokes outstanding as England recover from Roy loss

England were up against it at the start of their innings when Jason Roy, who scored 85 in the semi-final, was caught behind for just 17.

Wickets then fell for Joe Root (7), Jonny Bairstow (36) and Eoin Morgan (9) as England slipped to 86-4.

Up step Stokes and Jos Buttler to haul England back into contention. A supreme partnership of 110 did just that and a fortuitous bounce off Stokes bat with New Zealand going for a run out put the ball out for a boundary for an extra four runs.

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Buttler was caught for 59 with England needing 45 runs from 5.1 overs. Chris Woakes (2) and Liam Plunkett (10) both fell in quick succession, but the England tail end were only really there to help Stokes get the runs required.

Two successive sixes in the final over put England within touch, and a run with the final ball took the match to the Super Over.

New Zealand take England all the way

The Black Caps came into the match as outsiders but an impressive batting performance forced England to dig deep for victory.

Guptill fell for lbw off Woakes for 19 but Kane Williamson (30) and Henry Nicholls (55) put up a formidable partnership to move New Zealand to 118-3.

Tom Latham added 47 from 56 balls with Colin de Grandhomme’s 16 and Ross Taylor’s 15 setting England a respectable target.

For the first half of the England innings it looked like New Zealand would be most likely to win. England’s first four wickets fell to four different bowlers, with Neesham’s 3-43 and Lockie Ferguson’s 3-50 so close to being enough for New Zealand to take victory.

Cover Photo: Percita from Canberra, Australia [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

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