By Shenol.M.Wilson
Sundays are always special, but this Sunday was amazing as it was a day to remember for all the cricket lovers all around the world. Destiny was on stake again for the founders of cricket England and Asian Green Army Pakistan as they were all set to face on the big stage of ICC T20 World Cup 2022. Over 80,000 crowd were all fired up for the big occasion at MCG.
Winning the most important toss, England Captain, Joss the Boss decided to put Pakistan into bat. It was a tricky pitch to start with as bowlers were able to produce enough swing going into it.Pakistan had a slow start as usual as they were able to produce 29 runs opening partnership by taking almost 5 overs. Sam Curran and Adil Rashid was able to take some early wickets by making the enthusiastic Pakistan fans silent. Pakistan middle order batsmen Shan Masood and Shadab Khan tried to up the anti with their quick knocks of 38 runs from 28 balls and 20 runs from 14 balls. At one stage they were just 121-4 after 16.2 overs but ended up by only making 137 runs after the 20 overs by loosing 8 wickets. England bowlers were exceptional at the death to limit them for such a low score as Sam Curran produced a life time spell of 3 for 12 runs in his 4 overs and Chris Jordan was able to get 2 for 27 by helping him. Spin Master Adil Rashid was also able to produce another exceptional figures of 2 for 22 runs.
Moving into the more important chase, Pakistan brutal pace attack didn’t give the England openers to freely swing as they did in India match as Shaheen Afridi sent back Man of the Match of last match, Alex Hales into the pavilion when score was only 7 on board. It was a struggle for the English Batsmen from the beginning as Pakistan Pace bowlers bowled exceptionally well. At one stage it was 45 for 3 in the brink of power play. However, ever reliable Ben Stokes had other ideas as he was able to anchor the innings with a brilliant knock of 52 runs from 49 balls by playing according to the situation. Harry Brook and Moeen Ali gave him a proper support by scoring 20 runs and 19 runs respectively. At one stage Pakistan was almost there to take the upper hand, but knee injury for their star bowler Shaheen Shah Afridi hindered there hopes.
Ben stokes was able to execute the well-deserved winning runs off his bat as they got their hands into the second T20 World cup and got crowned as the current Champions of both 50 Overs and T20 World Cups. Player of the Final was Sam Curran and without any doubt he was able to get the player of Series award as well in such a young age. It was an amazing world cup with lots of ups and downs which were full of upsets. After all, the trophy is coming home for England and party is yet to begin.
