The World Cup 2019 final’s last over gathered a lot of controversies. England batsman Ben Stokes explains how he played the crucial over.
“I saw all of that. I was thinking to myself, did I say that? But hand on heart, I did not go up to the umpires and say something like that to the umpires. I went straight to Tom Latham and said ‘Mate, I am so sorry’, looked over to Kane (Williamson) and said ‘I’m sorry’,” he said in the latest episode of BBC podcast Tuffers and Vaughan.
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Stokes also explained how he played the final over and what he was thinking:
First, second ball: Stokes said he had decided he would face every ball of the over, and then the first two balls were dots with him failing to get the ball away.
Third ball: “I’ve never played a sweep shot off a seamer before so I’ve no idea why I chose to play that shot…I just decided I’m going to sweep this. I’ve faced Trent (Boult) a lot of times at the end of innings and when he misses his yorkers it’s a full toss,” he said.
Fourth ball – the controversial ‘six’: “That’s obviously been a big talking point. Don’t think there’s much to say. If you do that a thousand times again it’s not going to happen. Martin Guptill threw the ball in from 70 yards near the boundary and its managed to hit my bat off a full dive and go to the boundary. it’s a freak, freak accident,” he said.
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Fifth ball: – Stokes said he was trying to hit the ball over cover and “didn’t really plan to go for the second run”. He said that he expected Boult to throw the ball to his end but instead took off the bails to run out Adil Rashid.
Last ball: “I told Woody (Mark Wood), get your skates on, we’re going to run here,” Stokes said. He said that was the only stage he thought of the stage that the team was at.
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“Before that, it was just try and get as many runs as you can. But here, it was if I get out – in terms of if I hit one in the air and am out – then we lose. We don’t win the World Cup,” he said.
“When I look back at the moment at the end of my career, I will be happy with the decision because I had decided to hit it along the ground and run,” he said.
