New Zealand coach Gary Stead believes sharing the World Cup in the event of a tie in the final should come under consideration after his side were denied the title in agonising fashion.
England matched the Kiwis’ 241 in a breathless conclusion at Lord’s and the sides could not then be separated after a super over, the tournament hosts only prevailing by virtue of registering more boundaries across the contest.
While Stead was as magnanimous in defeat as captain Kane Williamson had been on Sunday, he questioned whether a tournament that spanned 46 days should be decided by such narrow parameters.
And when asked whether the International Cricket Council should award both sides the crown in the event of a tie, Stead said: “I’m sure when they were writing the rules they never expected a World Cup final like that.
“I’m sure it’ll be reviewed. Perhaps when you play over a seven-week period and you can’t be separated on the final day then that is something that should be considered.
“But that’s one consideration over a whole lot of things that went on over the World Cup.
“It’s a very, very hollow feeling that you can play 100 overs and score the same amount of runs and still lose the game, but that’s the technicalities of sport.
“It’s unfortunate it comes down to one ball right at the end of the tournament when we’ve been here for seven weeks playing some really good cricket. It will be raw for a long time.”
New Zealand had some luck go against them, most notably when Martin Guptill’s throw at the stumps saw a diving Ben Stokes inadvertently deflect the ball away to the boundary via his bat.
Six runs were added to the total, but former international umpire Simon Taufel said on Monday morning that England should have been awarded only five because Stokes and Adil Rashid had not crossed when the throw was released.
A law in the MCC’s rulebook would seem to back up the ex-official’s view, but Stead commented: “I didn’t actually know that. The umpires are there to rule and they’re human as well and, like players, sometimes errors are made.
“It’s just the human aspect of sport and probably why we all care about it so much as well. We can’t change that now. It will go down in history as one that got away from us.”
Asked about the prevailing mood in the dressing room afterwards, Stead added: “There was a lot of dejection and almost bewilderment around ‘how did that happen?’ and ‘why has it happened this way?’
“Everyone will react to it over time, but I imagine most of our guys will hit the wall for about a week or so and feel pretty down about things. But they shouldn’t, we should be really proud of what they have achieved.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here