We are now through the looking glass. We’re over the frontier. We’re not in Kansas any more, Toto. For a 17-year-old kid is now a major darts champion, and it feels totally inevitable, and it still makes absolutely no sense. Whatever Luke Littler goes on to achieve in this sport, somehow nothing will ever quite match the sheer tidal wave of shock and wonder he has inspired in his first six months as a professional, an explosion of talent and coolness and colour and attitude and showmanship that is, quite frankly, beyond comprehension.
Littler beat Luke Humphries 11-7 to claim the Premier League title, clinching victory courtesy of a stunning and irresistible surge after the interval that left the world champion and world No 1 gasping. Along the way Littler hit a nine-dart finish – 180, 180, 141 – that brought a crowd of 14,000 to the very brink of rapture. For a player of his tender years, he already instinctively grasps the first rule of big-time darts: give the people what they want.
