All it took was one ball.
When Australian spearhead bowler Mitchell Starc took the off stump of Kiwi captain Brendon McCullum, five balls in to New Zealand’s innings, you had the feeling the Aussies weren’t done yet. And they weren’t.
Three wickets fell inside the first 12 overs. Seven wickets were lost for 33 runs during a 10-over span. New Zealand folded to Australia by seven wickets in their first-ever appearance in a World Cup final, after making a docile 183. Australia chased it down vigorously on a flat lifeless wicket to claim their fifth World Cup title.
The trouncing was unexpected. Not so much the defeat but the margin. They didn’t play like a team boasting an 8–0 record heading into the final. They didn’t bat like a team that had the tournament’s top scorer, Martin Guptill, who smashed 547 runs. They didn’t bowl masterfully as they had through the previous six weeks—Trent Boult with 22 wickets; Daniel Vettori and Tim Southee with 15 wickets apiece; and Corey Anderson with 14.
Still, you could argue there were a gob of reasons for their undoing. New Zealand hadn’t played a one-day match in Australia for six years. In Melbourne, the ball doesn’t hoop and swing like it does in Auckland. Most of New Zealand’s great form in the past 18 months came from wins at home—out of 35 matches, only five of them were overseas. Perhaps the Kiwis were nervous in front of a World Cup final record crowd of more than 93,000 fans—your typical Black Caps’ crowd nets 40,000 on a good day. You could argue many more things may have dented New Zealand’s “dare to dream” World Cup campaign, but it may just have come down to the better team winning.
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The 49 games of the 2015 World Cup will be remembered for its infinite number of records, mainly of the batting variety. There were 38 individual hundreds bludgeoned—the most ever. Compare that to 1992, when only eight hundreds were scored. Guptill batted 237 not out off 163 balls (the second-highest score in the history of one-day cricket) against the West Indies in Wellington, where he smashed 24 fours and 11 sixes. Sri Lanka’s Kumar Sangakkara, who played his last World Cup, compiled a record-breaking four centuries on the trot. And Proteas skipper AB de Villiers produced the quickest one-day international 150 off 64 balls against the West Indies in Sydney.
For the bowling infantry, there was some revelry. Left-armers came into their own during this tournament and were pivotal with their unusual across-the-batsmen angles on the comatose wickets. Australia’s Mitchell Starc was awarded player of the tournament for his 22 wickets. Boult also claimed 22 wickets, and Indian paceman Umesh Yadav chipping in with 18. Southee had the best bowling figures with his 7-33, a performance that completely levelled England.
We’ve witnessed plenty of action in the past six weeks. But now it’s farewell. Here are five lessons from the 2015 ICC World Cup.
1. The World Cup format needs work. With two pools of seven teams, it made for a lengthy qualifying round, and there were more meaningless matches than important ones. Australia and India, two cricket titans, both played three games in three weeks. Too much lag. For future tournaments, the ICC should consider reverting back to the 2007 format of four groups of four teams, with a super-six round, so that fans get to watch the best teams play for longer, and then a semi and a final. The 2019 World Cup menu needs to include more cutthroat games and less inconsequential ones.
2. ICC needs to address modern bat technology. The strategy that caught on in Australia and New Zealand was simply this: Win the toss, bat first, bat the opposition out of the game with a 300-plus score, and game over. The thickness of the modern bat has increased by up to 22 mm, the sweet spot is almost two-and-a-half times larger, and the thickness of the edges has also increased by 300 percent. This means that mistimed top edges that used to fly into the hands of a fielder now travel over the fence for six runs. That shouldn’t happen. Having a blatant advantage in one area of the game makes it too one-sided. The ICC needs to strike a better balance between batting and bowling.
3. Minnows aren’t minnows anymore. There are upsets at just about every World Cup, but it is hard to ignore England’s early exit while Bangladesh progressed to the quarterfinals. Ireland missed out on qualifying for the knockouts by percentage, and Afghanistan won their first game at their first-ever World Cup. In the next few World Cups, it might not shock cricket fans to see a final that includes an associate country. Even this time round, it feels like Ireland missed out on an opportunity to make the final eight. Were the West Indies or Pakistan better? Only slightly.
4. 300 is the new normal. In 2007, 16 scores landed in the triple hundred zone. In 2011 there were 17. This year, 300 or more was reached 27 times, which equates to one-third of the team scores. Whether batting first or second, teams aren’t scared to go full throttle from the get-go. In Ireland’s win over the West Indies they chased 304 for victory. Most teams at this World Cup who batted first and made more than 300, won. New Zealand made 393 against West Indies in the quarterfinals and won. India made 302 against Bangladesh and won. Australia made 328 over India and won. So the new formula is simple: You make 300, you win.
5. The 2019 World Cup isn’t soon enough. This World Cup was fateful. It had on-field and off-field farce. It started with Ireland’s upset of the West Indies and ended with Australia carrying on its dynasty, winning four of the last five World Cups. There was the unearthing of new stars, like New Zealand’s Boult, Pakistan’s Wahab Riaz and there was a newly formed group of elite batsmen in Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers and Steve Smith. Others, like Scotland’s Majid Haq, made headlines for accusing his own team of racial bias and was sent home; some were sent home for breaking curfew or late-night visits to casinos. Every World Cup produces special memories, which fans collect like souvenirs. In four years, England will play host to the World Cup. New stars will emerge with the ball, veterans will hang up their bats and fans will collect new memories.