The sun was out when England won the World Cup. It had emerged, at last, from behind the freckles of white cloud and was shining low through the bright blue sky over the Grand Stand. The shadows stretched all the way to the wicket, the flags licked in the evening breeze, the pavilion glowed soft terracotta. The old place looked pretty as a picture, exactly how we see it in winter when thinking back on the games we saw, and the games we played, in the long, warm days of summer. For the 11 men in this England team, for the thousands in the ground, for the millions watching on TV, that is how they will always see it in their minds, years from now, when they think back on this match: the greatest World Cup final, heck maybe even the greatest game of one-day cricket, ever played.
The dizzying, sickening, drama of those final minutes were as compelling a stretch of sport as anything else that will happen this year, as gripping as anything, in fact, that has happened in the 14 years since the England cricket team last played live on free-to-air TV in 2005. Accurate viewing figures are notoriously hard to come by but, if Channel 4 could ever get hold of theirs for this broadcast, they will be disappointed with them because, even though all those sets were on around the country, surely most of the people in front of them were too scared to watch what was going on, were hiding behind their sofas, had their faces buried in a cushions, or sneaking glimpses from between their fingers.
Continue reading...from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2XJihbv
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