Count back those boundaries. For the record England hit 27 and New Zealand 38, but there was no need for spurious tiebreakers as, after restricting their opponents to 282, the Black Caps savaged the reigning 50- and 20-over champions during a response in which practically every over was super. The final game of the last World Cup provided England’s cricket fans with some of their most treasured memories; the first of this one will have produced some of the most grisly.
New Zealand, meanwhile, will treasure those of Devon Conway, raising his bat to celebrate reaching 150, by battering another boundary in what was to be the penultimate over. They eventually cantered across the finish line with 82 balls to spare. There was no repeat of that famous day at Lord’s in 2019 when the action moved to Ahmedabad: instead of shredded nerves there were shredded records, and instead of an England win by the narrowest of margins there was emphatic, unarguable, almost barbaric defeat.
