Sports Desk:

THE final of the 2019 ICC World Cup was arguably one of the best games of cricket at the highest international level ever played. And even though ‘Que sera, sera… the future’s not ours to see’, it is unlikely that there would be another one like the one played at Lord’s on July 14 between England and New Zealand for deciding the world champions in the ODI format of the game any time soon, a game that had hundreds of millions of viewers around the world glued to their TV sets while sitting on the edges of their seats.

England won the game and the championship but only after an unbelievable double tie; the first one with the final ball of the match and another with the last ball of the super over. It was a great pity though that notwithstanding the fact that the England team had played cricket of the highest quality that was matched ball for ball by the New Zealand team, England, in the end, won on a technicality after a tie in the super over and an umpire’s error in the final over that had sent the match to the super over.

The technicality that gave England the World Cup was the absurd ICC rule that stated that in case of a tie in the super over, the winner would be the team that scored more boundaries. The umpire’s error was committed by Kumar Dharmasena, who interpreted the rule on overthrow wrongly and gave England an extra run that had helped it tie the game to send the match to the super over.

The ICC rule was Article 19.8 on rules related to ODI matches on ‘Overthrow or wilful act of fielder’. The rule stated that ‘if the boundary results from an overthrow or the wilful act of a fielder, the runs scored shall be any runs for penalties awarded to either side and the allowance for the boundary and the runs completed by the batsmen, together with the run in progress if they had already crossed at the instant of the throw or act.’ Ben Stokes had not crossed his partner Adil Rashid in the instant the fielder threw the ball to the wicket-keeper for the second run. Thus the second run that Dharmasena gave Stokes and England was clearly in violation of Article 19.8.

Kumar Dharmasena’s error was no ordinary one. It literally took the match that New Zealand would have won fair and square and with that the championship and allowed England to tie the match and send it to the super over where the second tie allowed England to win the match and the championship on technicality based on the ICC’s absurd rule that most cricketer fans had not heard hitherto for scoring more boundaries than New Zealand. England had played superbly till the last ball and Ben Stokes batted like a super hero. They did not deserve to win on a technicality. And hundreds of millions of cricket lovers around the world who for six weeks had watched a cricketing spectacle of the highest order did not deserve to see a winner of such an event win the championship for scoring more boundaries.

It was not just the final game that raised WC 2019 to a level that cricket in the ODI format had never reached before. The other teams that failed to reach the finals, at least five of them, were in the hunt for the championship for 46 of the games till the semifinals or the final three games. They too played superlative cricket. Bangladesh had been competitive till it lost to India marginally in its penultimate game. Sakib Al Hasan was one of the three top batsmen of the tournament, a level above Virat Kohli. He should have been the ‘man of the series’ because he excelled in bowling as well with a 5/29 to his credit. That title went to Ken Williamson for his brilliant captaincy in the finals and perhaps as a consolation to New Zealand’s loss of the championship on a technicality. Williamson, nevertheless, was also a top batsman of the tournament but on batting stats below Sakib.

Yet millions who watched every game of the WC 2019 glued to the TV set were disappointed despite the tournament’s unquestionable highest standard because they had no choice but watch the games courtesy the Indian Pay-tv Star Sports that had employed mostly ex-Indian Test cricketers as commentators with a few ex-Test cricketers from England, Australia and New Zealand. The Indians commentators covered the WC 2019 like a bilateral series involving India where they were gaga mostly over Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, KL Rahul, Jasprit Bumrah or MS Dhoni, et cetera. And they talked of the Indian team like it was a class above the rest, except England and Australia that they grudgingly accepted as India’s equals. They may not have said so in words but that was the impression they unmistakably gave the viewers.

The Indian team and the Indian bowlers were very good. Sharma was the best batsman of the tournament on stats but then almost every team had a batsman or two as good as him and comparable with the other Indian batsmen. The Indian bowlers were also good but so were bowlers in the other teams. No team going to a game felt safe against any other. India almost lost to Afghanistan. Bangladesh almost chased the 314 India had set it falling short by 14 runs. South Africa lying near the bottom of the table defeated Australia that were placed at number two in the last game of the league that pushed South Africa a position ahead of Bangladesh and Bangladesh to the eighth position.

The Indian commentators were also in denial over the behaviour of Virat Kohli whose gestures on the field annoyed many non-Indian viewers. Ken Williamson’s leadership qualities exposed Kohli’s shortcomings and underlined for him and India that men’s cricket was, first and foremost, a gentlemen’s game and not for the likes of Virat Kohli, his brilliant batting notwithstanding. It appeared that the praises of the Indian media in particular that he was a batsman extraordinaire had gone to his head. In the context of the WC 2019, his teammate Sharma batted far better than he did.

The WC 2019 exposed a great deal that in the cricket parlance could be described as ‘it is not cricket’. Kohli’s behaviour was one of them. The WC 2019 also exposed cricket fans to an eerie feeling that international cricket’s so called ‘big three’ — India, England and Australia — were together with an ICC subservient to them the way the WCC 2019 was planned and executed. And that although the IPL was nowhere in sight during the games, its influence arising mostly from its humongous money spinning realities and potentials appear to have played its role particularly in the roles of the tournament’s support staff and some of the umpires in particular. The WC 2019 has provided the cricket world with the opportunity to review some of the bad influences that the game has faced and the way it is regulated internationally by the ICC by exposing some of them, if not explicitly, implicitly undoubtedly.

For instance, the WC 2019 exposed that the rules related to LBW under the Umpire Decision Review System — DRS often appeared rather weird. Before the DRS came, a batsman was LBW when the umpire was convinced that the ball would have simply hit the stumps if it had not hit the batsman’s pad. Then came the DRS and with it came the conditions that the ball should be pitched in line with the wickets and crash on the stumps for the batsman to be out LBW. The ICC has used technology to complicate the game. It should revert to the way an LBW was given before the DRS that a batsman should be out when the DRS review showed the ball had hit the stumps in any manner to dislodge the bails.

Notwithstanding the ICC and some of its weird rules, the role of cricket’s so called ‘big three’, some of the umpires, the Indian TV commentators and the Indian media, the World Cup 2019 was a magical experience for the millions of cricket lovers who watched it. In the end, despite all the above and England’s victory on a technicality, it was the beautiful game of cricket with all its glorious uncertainties that won and with it the hearts of all who watched.