New Delhi: New Zealand’s Kane Williamson became one of the most respected skippers as he won billions of hearts with his calmness in defeat at the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup final.
The final between England and New Zealand on July 14 at Lord’s was one for the ages as the match did not have a winner after 50-over and super over action.
In the end, England were announced as the champions based on the boundary count back rule. England had hit more boundaries, 26, as compared to New Zealand’s 17 boundaries in the match.
Indian Premier League (IPL) team SunRisers Hyderabad in a tweet praised their captain Williamson and asked netizens to express their love for the Kiwi cricketer. Williamson can be seen hugging former New Zealand skipper Brendon McCullum after losing the final. “One retweet = one hug for #KaneWilliamson Twitter
do your thing!” SunRisers Hyderabad said.
After missing out on the World Cup trophy, Williamson said the loss against England in the final based on boundary count back rule was pretty hard to swallow.
“I never thought I would have to answer this. It’s pretty hard to swallow when two teams have worked really hard to reach this point. It’s what it is, the rules were there at the start, no one thought it would come down to this. It’s a pretty hard loss to swallow. The rules are there. It is something you don’t consider when you go out to play. I didn’t even know what the boundary count was, but we were behind,” Williamson said.
This is the second successive time that New Zealand finished as the runners-up in the World Cup. The Kiwis under the leadership of McCullum lost the final of the 2015 edition to Australia by seven wickets.