NZ VS ENG - Final, ICC Cricket World Cup 2019

It's come home. World Cup final, tied. A super-over, tied. *Collecting pieces of jaw from floor*. You've got to be kidding me. The cricketing gods certainly have made up for the damp squibs with one heck of a final - perhaps the greatest ODI of all time - challenging the semi-final of '99 and Four-Three-Eight. This is a thunderstruck Rishi Roy, bidding you goodbye on behalf of a delirious commentary box - Sagar Chawla, Vineet Anantharaman, Ramakrishnan MS, Pradeep Krishnamurthy, Akshay Maanay, Venkatesh AV and Naga! As fireworks engulf the Mecca of cricket, our coverage of the World Cup comes to an end. We'll be back in the 2023 edition - in India! Until then, England are the World Champions! *Curtains Down*

Way back in 2015, the Kiwis very aptly put it: "it's the time of our lives." One way or another, the twenty-two men who took the field today will make it into cricketing legend. The future generations will know, that someone in their family tree had the gravitas to make the final lap in pursuit of eternal glory, and took a shot at reaching the very pinnacle of the sport - the final lap to lift the chalice of champions, that vessel of victory, the World Cup. Gathering your jaws, make sure you go for a daily check-up tomorrow - I know I will.

Perhaps it's easier said than done, but McCullum's way sounds like a coping mechanism - "I got back into the dressing room, sat down and just laughed. Otherwise I'd still be crying..."

Every constituent, except perhaps luck - that moment. The deflection. It'll flash before the eyes of these Kiwi players for years to come. I can't possibly imagine what's going through their minds at this point. Such a spirited campaign, all leading up to a few feet - leaving Martin Guptill in absolute agony on the pitch. Such is cricket. Such is sport.

Fort Minor - "This is 10% luck, 20% skill, 15% concentrated power of will, 5% pleasure, 50% pain, and that's a 100% reason to remember my name..."

It is the day when the stakes are the highest, and the players' natural instinct is to overthink - about all the times they'd dreamed of it, the time they'd invested in practice, the life they'd dedicated to the sport, raises the stakes even higher in their heads. But this wasn't about nerves...

Garden cricket, the practice sessions, the hours in the gym, and even the mental conditioning - it would all come down to this. It opens up a very intimate, private door into the players' past: their childhood and why they started playing in the first place, right into the roots of "who they really are", as opposed to the persona they create. "All my life I had dreamt of that moment. As a child, I played it out against mates day after day, and as a man I practised for it with an almost eerie certainty that one day it would come. Yes, it was a bad shot, but it wasn't a bad idea, no way." - Baz McCullum...

The last of stats for these two months ..

** Man of the Match in World Cup finals:
C Lloyd
V Richards
M Amarnath
D Boon
Wasim Akram
Aravinda de Silva
S Warne
R Ponting
A Gilchrist
MS Dhoni
J Faulkner
B STOKES

** Player of the series in World Cups:
1992 M Crowe
1996 S Jayasuriya
1999 L Klusener
2003 S Tendulkar
2007 G McGrath
2011 Yuvraj Singh
2015 M Starc
2019 KANE WILLIAMSON

Yet, it is ironic that it is the thrill of calming your nerves in the direst of situations is a major constituent of the euphoria in the conquest of paradise - because sportsmen are rarely anhedonic by nature. The very fact that they yearned to take up cricket professionally, spawns from their inherent lust for the thrill and the atmosphere of the arena - and England, a moment they would have dreamed about for years on end, are living the dream at Lord's right now.

This is the moment - England are crowned World Cup champions for the first time ever. Absolute delirium out at the center! Fireworks go off into the London skies, and they absolutely drench each other in champagne in front of that highly-deserved banner that says CHAMPIONS. Bairstow sets off another champagne rocket into the skies - spare one for your palate, Jonny! Morgan holds it aloft - after all the scars of the group-stage ousters over the years, and the graft over the last four years. An overhaul - and they've toppled everything on its head. A revolution, if ever there was one, culminates on this glorious evening at Lord's as the players take turns lifting the World Cup.

Eoin Morgan | World Cup-winning captain: There was a lot in that game, jeez. I'd like to commiserate Kane and his team. The fight that they show is worth aspiring to. The example that they lead is hugely commendable to him and his team. It was a very hard-fought game. It was a tough wicket where everyone found it tough to score. We lost a lot of wickets. Buttler and Stokes put together a partnership, and I thought that would take us deep, and it did. This has been a four-year journey. We have developed a lot over those years, especially the last two. We find it hard to play on wickets like that. To get over the line today means the world to us. I was being cooled down by Liam Plunkett, which isn't a good sign - we were going up and down like a yo-yo. Some of the support staff and the players - not only the best in our team, but in the world, they really helped - quite calming at times. As long as wasn't too cooked, I asked Stokes to go for it. Full credit to the two boys who went out for the Super Over, given that they were there most recently. Archer just improves every time he goes out there. Really incredible - everyone in the change room today, and the ones who aren't here and missed out on the squad - Willey, Billings. I'd like to mention them too.

The England players now collect their mementos.

Kane Williamson | Runners-up captain: We were thinking about the overhead conditions (the toss decision). The pitch was on the drier side. We thought runs on the board would be a good option - we would have liked 10-20 more. But in a World Cup final this was a competitive total. The bowlers really put the batsmen under pressure on a tough surface. Both the teams showed a lot of fight. It had to go down to the last ball, and then the last ball of the next little match, but a great match all round. Lot of positives for us as well. It was a shame that the ball hit Stokes' bat, but I just hope it doesn't happen in moments like that. Unfortunately that sort of thing happens from time to time. It's a part of the game that we play. I don't wish to nitpick, just hope it never happens in such moments ever again. They (Neesham and Guptill) both hit the ball very hard, the left-hand right-hand combination was useful in the Super Over, looking at the short boundary, but it's unfair to critique a match fought with such small margins - especially the match that we saw today.

The New Zealand players are called onto the podium to collect their runners-up mementos.

Kane Williamson | Player of the tournament (578 runs): (receives the award from Sachin Tendulkar) It certainly wasn't just one extra run. There were so many moments that could've gone either way, but congratulations to England - they've had an incredible campaign and they deserve it. It's been challenging. The pitches have been different to what was expected. Not many 300+ totals as expected. The NZ side showed a great amount of heart to get us to this point, all leading to a tie in the final, but it just wasn't meant to be today. We're a well-balanced attack. The guys are shattered at the moment - it is devastating. They've performed at a very high level throughout the tournament. It's pretty tough to swallow at this stage. But a fantastic effort from our guys.

Ben Stokes, Man of the Match: *Loud cheers!* Pretty good innit? I'm pretty lost for words. All the hardwork that's gone on in these four years, and to execute with such a good game is unthinkable. Thanks to everyone for all the support. We just kept talking during the partnership with Jos, and the run-rate wasn't getting away, and in the last over when the ball hit the bat and went for four - I apologized to Kane for that. I definitely wasn't going to bowl the last over (laughs). It's fantastic, the lads, the family, and the support, it's just been incredible.

The umpires collect their mementos.

Time for the presentations.

I had echoed, before the first ball was bowled, the words of mental conditioning coach, Paddy Upton's who was with the Indian side in their victorious 2011 World Cup campaign - "compulsive liar" lies in the list of traits that constitutes "mental toughness" on the big stage. It originates from the obstinacy to succeed; to lie to the extent that you convince yourself that it is the truth. We're talking delusional levels of self-confidence - essentially a psychopath, without the propensity for violence. Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler, and Jofra Archer in particular - take a bow! Presentations coming up...

When the mind is conscious of what is at stake, and a visual stimulus is so readily available, it triggers such unbearable, unfathomable anxiety that in that moment, composure is hardly a peripheral virtue. It is then, that ignorance becomes bliss. Wouldn't it be ideal, if you simply didn't remember that you were playing a World Cup final?