The Cricket World Cup 2019 was just concluded a few days back in England. It was an interesting tournament which lasted for just over a month and it witnessed some of the most amazing matches of cricket and some unexpected results, including the winners. In this article, we will try to review the world cup in brief. So, if you missed out the world cup, just read this article and get to know about the rushes within a few minutes!
An introduction to the world cup
This world cup had 10 teams. The teams which participated in alphabetical order were – Afghanistan, Australia, Bangladesh, England, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka and West Indies Among these 10 teams, Afghanistan was really new team and nobody was expecting it to do wonders and it did just that! One of the regulars of World Cup, Zimbabwe, was not included as it didn’t qualify for the world and Afghanistan took its place. However it failed to create any buzz and lost all the matches.
Before the world cup started, the defending champions Australia were considered a strong contender for winning the world cup. Apart from Australia, the in-form India, New Zealand and the host England were considered strong contenders. Pakistan, Sri Lanka and South Africa are good teams and are always capable of winning world cups and tournaments and hence they too you were given chance by the bookies. However the results were quite unexpected.
The league stage
The format of the world cup what’s was league to knockout. In the league stage, every team has to play the other team once. There were total of 10 teams and that meant that every team has to play nine matches, once with every other opponent. After that, the top 4 teams, (as per the ranking of points and run rates) qualified for the semi final which was followed by the final.
The league stage didn’t have too many upset but remarkable thing in the league stage was substandard performance by some of the best countries cricketing countries like Sri Lanka Pakistan and South Africa. Neither of these team made it in to the semi final which was quite disappointing for the fans all these countries. West Indies too, had a very poor show and gave one of the worst performances at the world cup and the lost most of their matches.
There was some rain delays and some match has to be cancelled due to rain and players had no option but to sit in the dressing room and browsing sites like 888 Casino for passing time. This also affected the point tally and it played a crucial role in deciding the semifinalists. Ultimately, Australia, India New Zealand and England were the 4 teams that made it in to the semi finals with India topping the point tally facing New Zealand in the semifinal and England, the host country facing the defending Champions Australia in the second one.
The semi finals
The first semi final was between India and New Zealand. In the league stages, these teams met once but that match was drained off due to rain and hence they were yet to face each other in this tournament. On paper, India was a much better team and strong contenders for the finals. But their record against New Zealand, especially at overseas or neutral venues has not been very impressive. New Zealand on the other hand had a new team that has been lifted ably by their captain and they looked all set to create an upset. The first day of the match had some heavy showers which resulted in the cancellation of the semifinal and it was continued the next day.
At the first day, India looked in firm position with controlling New Zealand batsman and restricting them to under 250 runs. However, Indian batting collapsed miserably chasing the target and although, they made some efforts in the later stage of the game but, they were not able to make up for the early losses and shock that they received and finally lost the semi final battle to the New Zealand.
The second semi final too had an unexpected result with everybody favoring Australia as they have beaten England in most of the matches of the world cup. However, England shocked Australia by beating them convincingly and that set up stage for a brand new finale for the first time with both teams yet to win a world cup. This matched assured that this year will see new world champion for the very first time in the history of cricket.
The finale
The final of the Cricket World Cup 2019 was one of the most amazing and one of its kind of matches. Nobody expected a world cup final to be a tie but it happened just that! More so, nobody expected it to be concluded in super over, which too surprisingly ended up in a tie. Even more interestingly, the winner was concluded with help of the rule book, which stated that in case of a tie and equal super over result, the winner will be determined by counting the number of the boundaries scored in the game. England, luckily were leading boundary makers in the game and hence they were handed over the world cup!
This is one of the most interesting and shocking ways of deciding the winner of biggest tournament of cricket but that is how it happened. The world cup saw some of the most amazing matches and surprise winner England. They have made it to the finals for quite a few times and they were finally able to lift the world cup trophy for the first time! So, this was the Cricket world cup 2019 for you at a glance. We hope that you enjoyed reading this article. If you would like to ask any other questions on this topic they please leave a comment. We thank you for taking out time to read this article.