England won their first cricket World Cup on boundaries after two ties
At Lord's on 14 July 2019, England and New Zealand each made 241, forcing the first Super Over ever played in a one-day international. That finished level too. England lifted the trophy for the first time only because they had struck more boundaries across the match, a tiebreak most fans had never heard of.
The 12th men's Cricket World Cup ran from 30 May, with ten venues in England and one in Wales, Sophia Gardens in Cardiff. England had staged the tournament in 1975, 1979, 1983 and 1999, and won the 2019 rights in 2006 after pulling out of contention for 2015. The field shrank to ten teams from 14, and they played a single round-robin of 45 matches, a shape last seen in 1992. For the first time no Associate nation took part, Zimbabwe missed out for the first time since 1983, and the West Indies and Afghanistan came through the qualifier.
Weather caused grumbles. Four games in one week were washed out with no reserve days, and the ICC's chief executive argued that adding them would have stretched the event and made it hard to run. India, Australia, England and New Zealand reached the semi-finals, while Pakistan went out on net run rate. Along the way the West Indies bowled Pakistan out for 105, the lowest total of the competition.
The age spread was wide. South African leg-spinner Imran Tahir was 40, while Afghan spinner Mujeeb Ur Rahman was just 18. Before a ball was bowled, the ten captains met Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace, and an opening show on The Mall ended with Loryn and Rudimental performing the official song, Stand By.
Money and audiences were large. The ICC split a 10 million dollar pool, with 4 million going to the champions. Around 752,000 spectators passed through the gates, and group-stage videos drew more than 2.6 billion views online, making it the most-watched cricket competition up to that year.
Source: 2019 Cricket World Cup
