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LOL...if there was any team in cricket to experience such "travesty" through a simple collection of unfortunate events, it is the Black Caps...those Kiwis are hardened folk, used to disappointment with their cricket side....they had plenty of opportunities to ice that game and came up short....tho who would of thought a side, who hardly posted scores about 250, could beat India in a semi then lose by a bee's dick to England....gutsy effort for sure, but a travesty.....Naagh....just sums the Black Caps in a nutshell. Great to see Eng put through the wringer too, might take weeks to recover from that emotional roller coaster ride....especially with the ashes a fortnight away.

Great advertisement for the game though......half way through my working day here in NZ, been up since 730 Sunday morning...living on the misery of my Kiwi colleagues faces to get me through.......funniest thing for me in all this is that an ex Kiwi played a huge part in the Black Caps demise....now that is so funny it is beyond being ironic and a travesty.....

GTR it would be fair to say I have been suffering from sleep deprivation for the last month or so since the WC started so looking forward to a fortnights rest until the Ashes starts up and then back into the very late nights.
The umps must have felt sorry for Roy after his tanty in the semi final as he was deadset plumb last night but got the lucky break this time around and that was after Ross Taylor's howler too.
Freeze in my books the Soap Dodgers have still not officially WON a World Cup Final as they tied both the 50 overs and the Super Overs but then some silly rule stopped them going into another Super Over to officially declare a winner, light wasnt an issue so why they didnt just play out Super Overs until we had an official winner is beyond me but this is the ICC (BCCI) we are talking about I suppose!

Probably the greatest-ever World Cup game - upstaging the 1999 Australia-South Africa semi-final - and a great advertisement for the 50-over game.
There didn't deserve to be a loser - how stiff (metaphorically speaking) can the Kiwis get losing (tying twice) in such fashion.
Surely they should've played an extra super over rather than reverting to the most boundaries' rule.

As great a champ as Williamson is....not sure how he was player of the tournament....Yep scored plenty of runs.....but geez he was slow as a wet week at times.....and during this match he was something like 2 runs off 24 deliveries.....and his side loses by a 1 run.....geez the likes of Sharma, Warner, Starc, Stokes and the Bangladeshi allrounder were just as good....even better.....

Freezin: I think it is fair enough to give it to Williamson; from my point of view I think he worked out that 250 would have to enough in games, rememberring, of course, his good bowlling attack.

On the overthrows-- there is no law in cricket which forces the fielding side to throw the ball in to the stumps; it was stupid cricket by NZ as Freezin has pointed out with some aplomb; I am unsure why Stokes even botherred to apologise to be honest.

Simply a case of one team having all the luck and thus just falling over the line. The stepping on the rope happens all the time, just bad luck, the return hitting the batter is less common but again just dumb luck for the soap dodgers. The boundaries rule is a complete joke, extra overs until a winner is a completely fair way to decide a game. Not sure the poms can take too much out of this win but they got there and the chips fell their way big time. As for Australia, I think it was a pretty good effort given they were rated 7th or 8th not so long ago. A team on the rise hopefully and a chance to catch the poms still in celebration mode in the first test.

Fantastic advertisement for the 50 over game which has been in the shadow of the 20/20 "revolution" over the last few years. I agree with SS the rub of the green seemed to be with the English for the whole day. Its almost as if they had the luck of the Irish.......wait a moment...
One more thing, if Dharmasena is in the top 2 umpires in the world which must be regarded as the case given he got a gig in the finals, we must be devoid of talent in this area. Not content with his stinker in the semi which deprived Roy of a century. He then proceeded to fire Ross Taylor with an LBW howler that was obviously going over thee stumps. Could probably blame Guptill for burning their review on a hopeless cause but Dharmasena seems to be guessing sometimes and in a game that was decided by 1 run,every decision is brought under the spotlight.

Just read that Simon Taufel , a respected ex umpire who was number 1 in the world for a while has just been quoted as saying that the decision to award 6 runs for the throw that hit Ben Stokes in the final over should have only been 5 runs as the batsmen had not crossed for their 2nd run at the moment the NZ fielder threw the ball. In all the mayhem you can probably understand the onfield umpires missing this but surely they could have checked this via the 3rd umpire given the closeness of the game. If had it been only given as a 5, England would have needed 4 from 2 balls instead of 3 from 2. Just vital in a tournament such as this for officials to get it right.

Archie Duda Goal Machine wrote: Probably the greatest-ever World Cup game - upstaging the 1999 Australia-South Africa semi-final - and a great advertisement for the 50-over game.
There didn't deserve to be a loser - how stiff (metaphorically speaking) can the Kiwis get losing (tying twice) in such fashion.
Surely they should've played an extra super over rather than reverting to the most boundaries' rule.

Dumbest rule ever, of course keep playing super overs until someone wins. The foxtel commentators thought that England had won because they finished higher on the table than NZ. I don't know whether Kane Williamson deserved to win the player of the tournament award but if you get a chance look at his post match press conference. It was raw, honest and generous in defeat. An outstanding sportsman.