England won but luck played too big a part

Imagine this - Bangladesh are the team playing the 2019 World Cup final in place of New Zealand and lose it against England because they hit fewer boundaries. 

Imagine the uproar and pandemonium it would cause and the pressure the fans and maybe even the board would put on the ICC to have joint champions. 

It’s all very likely, as we previously saw the board appeal when Bangladesh lost the final against Pakistan in the Asia Cup. 

They appealed that the Pakistan bowler Aizaz Cheema was blocking the path of Mahmudullah when the batsman was trying to take two runs. 

As a result, if proven guilty, the team would be penalised five runs, but the Asian Cricket Council (ACC) dismissed the appeal and Bangladesh’s 2-run loss remained. 

But this is a different, as New Zealand didn’t lose the match, or the Super Over, but they’re still not winners. 

The Kiwis are runners-up because they hit less boundaries than England in the match, and that rule needs another look.

Super overs are a thing in T20s and it's the format of the game where batsmen are looking to score quickly at almost all times, and boundary-hitting becomes an important facet.

But in ODIs, there is ample time for the bowlers to put pressure and the batsmen have to graft, as was the case in the final at Lord’s, so boundary-hitting was never really on the agenda of the batsmen.

There was a massive amount of luck involved, especially if you consider, one of the boundaries that happened in the last over of the England run chase was a throw where the ball ricocheted off Ben Stokes’ bat and went to the boundary.

The rule could have been changed for the ODI format where, if the scores are level in the Super Over as well, another Super Over will commence and that would have been much fairer.

Another could have been choosing the winner based on which team won against the other during the group stages, or the team that finished the group stages with more points would win.

In both the latter cases, England would have been winning, but it would still feel more fair even though it wouldn’t be as fair as the first option.

But that is not to say that New Zealand haven't had their share of luck in the tournament as their match against India in the group stages got washed out, and they barely qualified for the semis based on a better net run rate than Pakistan, who had an equal number of points.

One can also say that the way England have played ODI cricket over the last four years, they deserved to win the World Cup and with the amount of luck the Kiwis had at the beginning of the tournament, they deserved to have some go against them.

In the end, cricket was the great leveler, but the rule where more boundaries decide the fate of a match, needs a big rethink.