Cricket World Cup 2019 – A Recap…

The ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 hosted by England and Wales concluded on 14^th July, 2019 with England being crowned as a new Cricket world champion. It all started on 30^th May, 2019 when the battle of becoming world champion began with inaugural match played between England and South Africa. There were total 48 matches played in this 12^th edition of ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 starting from 3oth May to 14^th July.

This World Cup gave a new champion after 23 years when Sri Lanka won the World Cup in 1996. England is the new World Champion in Cricket. In the past, England reached world cup final at three occasions but were unable to defeat the opponent. In 2019, England reached final for the fourth time and managed to become World Champion for the maiden time creating a history. Australia had won World Cup for the maximum number of times followed by West Indies and India.  Team wise number of world Cup wins are given in below table:

No of times World Cup win	Team	Year
5	Australia	1987, 1999, 2003, 2007 & 2015
2	West Indies	1975 & 1979
2	India	1983 & 2011
1	Pakistan	1992
1	Sri Lanka	1996
1	England	2019
Source: International Cricket Council (ICC)

As it can be inferred, Australia had dominated the Cricket World Cup with maximum wins of five times and it is the only country having three consecutive World Cup wins (1999, 2003 & 2007). India won two times in 1983 and 2011. India reached both 2015 & 2019 world cups  semi-final but couldn’t convert it to the finals. India had a close encounter with New Zealand cricket team in 2019 semi final  where later defeated India by 18 runs to enter the World Cup final. The second semi-final between England and Australia was totally dominated by English team who crushed Australia by 8 wickets and paved the way for the historical final at Lord’s.

2019 Cricket World final, played between England and New Zealand was thrilling, interesting and competitive in nature where both teams were putting their all effort to win for the maiden time. Cricket fans across the globe were witnessing the history being made at Lord’s Cricket ground; also known as “Mecca of Cricket”. New Zealand won the toss and decided to bat first setting a target of 241 for England to win. England started to chase the target with early breakdown of 86 for four wickets and game was in the New Zealand favor. Then came Ben Stokes and Jos Butler, their valuable partnership turned the match in the England favor till fall of Butler’s wicket.  Again the ball was in New Zealand favor but Ben Stock  took the game till the last ball of the match and the scores were labeled which made to go for Super Over and England made 15 runs in the Super Over, giving New Zealand target of 16 runs to win. New Zealand made 15 runs in the Super Over and the score were labeled again. England won by the number of boundaries rule as their number of boundaries was more than New Zealand. England created history by winning the Cricket World Cup for the maiden time.  Also, for the first time in the Cricket World Cup history, Super Over was used to decide the winner. This World Cup final was outstanding…

Finally, Cricket won…

Congratulations to the England team for their maiden World cup win and also congratulations to the New Zealand team for winning hearts of millions of Cricket fans.

– Ashish Kumar