Trinida­di­an his­to­ri­an and writer CLR James once penned: “What do they of crick­et know, who on­ly crick­et know?”

Well, James would have nod­ded amus­ing­ly at 7.37 pm Sun­day night in Cen­tral Lon­don, as Eng­land won their first-ever ICC World Cup with a Su­per Over vic­to­ry against New Zealand, who lost an­oth­er fi­nal but the 28,500 spec­ta­tors at the venue and crick­et were the re­al win­ners.

Ben Stokes script­ed him­self to im­mor­tal­i­ty as he starred in the great­est ever ODI crick­et match to lead Eng­land to their first ti­tle by virtue of scor­ing more bound­aries dur­ing the match.

Eng­land, chas­ing 242 runs to win the ti­tle, were bowled out on the fi­nal de­liv­ery for 241. It was then to the Su­per Over and Eng­land, bat­ting first, scored 15 and New Zealand in their turn made 15 as well. The match was then de­cid­ed on who struck more bound­aries in the match and it went to Eng­land, who hit a to­tal of 26 bound­aries to the Ki­wis’ 17.

With Eng­land need­ing 15 runs off the 50th and fi­nal over, Stokes re­fused sin­gles off the first two de­liv­er­ies bowled by vet­er­an pac­er Trent Boult, as he knew it was all up to him. The next ball sailed in­to the mid-wick­et stand for six and the equa­tion changed to nine need­ed from three balls. He then played the next ball to deep mid-wick­et and on go­ing back for two the re­turn from Mar­tin Gup­till ric­o­cheted off his bat and went for four runs, giv­ing Eng­land six runs. With three need­ed off two balls, how­ev­er, his part­ner Adil Rashid got run out at the non-strik­er’s end but they got one run in the process. Need­ing to get two off the fi­nal ball, Stokes ran one and last man Mark Wood was run out go­ing for the sec­ond run with the scores tied.

In the Su­per Over, Eng­land got to 15 and Gup­till was run out go­ing for two off the fi­nal ball that would have won New Zealand the match. As it end­ed, the Ki­wis got to 15 as well and Eng­land ran home win­ners by virtue of scor­ing more bound­aries in their in­nings.

Ear­li­er, Stokes was the sav­iour for Eng­land af­ter they slumped to 86 for four. He got a fifth-wick­et part­ner­ship of 110 with Jos But­tler be­fore New Zealand struck back to re­move the last five wick­ets for just 45 runs. Stokes end­ed un­beat­en on 84 off 98 de­liv­er­ies with five fours and two six­es while But­tler made 59 off 60 balls with six hits to the bound­ary.

New Zealand cap­tain Kane Williamson had won the toss at the start and opt­ed to bat. The first eight to 10 overs were al­ways go­ing to be cru­cial and the Ki­wis had just one man down af­ter 10 but scored on­ly 33 runs on a slug­gish pitch. What they did was to lim­it dam­age to the new ball bowlers in or­der to pro­tect what had been a frag­ile mid­dle or­der, bar­ring Williamson and Ross Tay­lor. Eng­land’s bowlers used the cross-seam well af­ter the first pow­er­play and got the ball to skid on nice­ly through Liam Plun­kett, who kept the Ki­wis hon­est.

But Hen­ry Nicholls, av­er­ag­ing just 12 with the bat go­ing in­to the fi­nal, showed he was a man for the big oc­ca­sion with a well-played 55. Nicholls and Williamson got New Zealand to their cen­tu­ry in the 22nd over on­ly for Eng­land to strike back. Plun­kett sent back Williamson for 30 but Nicholls stood firm. How­ev­er, Plun­kett kept work­ing at him and with the score at 118 for two, he bowled Nicholls, who faced 77 balls and hit four fours.

Tom Lath­am took care of the back end of the in­nings for the Ki­wis, as he was able to clout 47 runs off 56 balls with two fours and a six to take them to a score they felt they had a chance with. Plun­kett fin­ished with three wick­ets for 42 runs off 10 overs and Chris Woakes added three for 37 off nine.

SCORE­BOARD

Eng­land vs N Zealand

N Zealand inns

M.Gup­till lbw b Woakes 19

H.Nicholls b Plun­kett 55

K.Williamson (c) c

†But­tler b Plun­kett 30

L.Tay­lor lbw b Wood 15

T.Lath­am †c sub (JM Vince)

b Woakes 47

J.Nee­sham c Root b Plun­kett 19

C.de Grand­homme

c sub (JM Vince) b Woakes 16

M.Sant­ner not out 5

M.Hen­ry b Archer 4

T.Boult not out 1

Ex­tras 30

TO­TAL for 8 wk­ts (50) 241

WK­ts at: 1-29 (M.Gup­till), 2-103 (K.Williamson), 3-118 (H.Nicholls), 4-141 (R.Tay­lor), 5-173 (J.Nee­sham), 6-219 (C. de­Grand­homme), 7-232 (T. Lath­am), 8-240 (M.Hen­ry)

BOWL­ING: C.Woakes 9-0-37-3, J.Archer 10-0-42-1, L.Plun­kett 10-0-42-3, M.Wood 10-1-49-1, A.Rashid 8-0-39-0, B.Stokes 3-0-20-0

Eng­land inns

J.Roy c †Lath­am b Hen­ry 17

J.Bairstow b Fer­gu­son 36

J.Root c †Lath­am

b de Grand­homme 7

E.Mor­gan (c)

c Fer­gu­son b Nee­sham 9

B.Stokes not out 84

J.But­tler† c

sub (TG Southee) b Fer­gu­son 59

C.Woakes c †Lath­am b Fer­gu­son 2

L.Plun­kett c Boult b Nee­sham 10

J.Archer b Nee­sham 0

A.Rashid run out (Sant­ner/Boult) 0

M.Wood run out (Nee­sham/Boult) 0

Ex­tras 17

TO­TAL all out (50) 241

Wk­ts at: 1-28 (J.Roy), 2-59 (J.Root), 3-71 (J.Bairstow), 4-86 (E.Mor­gan), 5-196 (J.But­tler), 6-203 (C.Woake), 7-220 (L.Plun­kett), 8-227 (J.Archer), 9-240 (A.Rashid), 10-241 (M.Wood)

BOWL­ING: T.Boult 10-0-67-0, M.Hen­ry 10-2-40-1, C.de Grand­homme 10-2-25-1, L.Fer­gu­son 10-0-50-3, J.Nee­sham 7-0-43-3, M.Sant­ner 3-0-11-0

Re­sult: match tied; Eng­land won in Su­per Over by virtue of hit­ting more bound­aries in 50 overs.

Play­er of Match: Ben Stokes (Eng)

Play­er of Tour­na­ment: Kane Williamson (NZ)