We had people stand up when it mattered, says NZ skipper Tom Latham
New Zealand captain Tom Latham on Sunday said it will take time to sink in that his team has whitewashed India 3-0 at home for the first time in its history.
After New Zealand’s heart-wrenching defeat against England in the final of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019, New Zealand head coach Gary Stead believes the possibility of sharing the World Cup is something that “should be considered” by the International Cricket Council (ICC).
On Sunday, England and New Zealand had to play a Super Over at Lord’s as their scores in 50 overs were tied (241 runs). But the final became much more interesting when the Super Over also ended in a tie and England were declared the eventual winners on boundary count.
England amassed 26 boundaries in total in the entire duration of the match as compared to 17 by the Black Caps and were thus crowned as champions as per the rules of a Super Over tie.
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Asked during a media interaction at the team hotel whether he would have preferred New Zealand being declared joint winners, Stead was open to the suggestion.
“Perhaps when you play over a seven-week period and can’t be separated on the final day, that is something should be considered as well,” ESPNcricinfo quoted Stead as saying. “But again that’s one consideration over a whole lot of things that went on over the World Cup. Everything will be reviewed, and I think that it’s a good time to do it now. But probably just let the dust settle for a while.”
However, Craig McMillan, New Zealand’s batting coach believed that sharing the trophy would have been the “right thing” to do.
“It is not going to change yesterday’s result. But what is probably fair to say at the end of seven weeks in a big tournament like this, when you have two teams can’t be separated after a 50-over match and then a Super Over and neither team did actually lose in many ways in terms of runs scored,” said McMillan.
“Then perhaps sharing the trophy would be the right thing to do. It wasn’t to be yesterday, which we all are disappointed with. But it is sport and those were the rules.”
Earlier, many former cricketers like Gautam Gambhir, Dean Jones, Brett Lee, Yuvraj Singh and others had criticised the ICC for the boundary rule.
(With inputs from IANS)
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