So, I went round to my mates house with about 8 others to watch the cricket with all of us thinking that we should win it but it won't be a push over. Things got a bit tense until we broke the main partnership and then we cooly watched us limit the Kiwi's to 241... Nearly job done, track looks hard to score on but we should do this with a few overs to spare, so the thinking of the crowd in the front room... Read later on - err, what's going on here...? Root, what you doing...!!! Unlucky Bairstow lad, jeez, were in a bit here... Come on Captain Morgan... Oh wait, what you doing, NOOOO...!! We all then said we can't win, then we could. I said we would lose by 8-10 runs, a couple said by more, some by less, but no one had us winning... But thank the Lord, or whoever it is who looks down and says your hand is the winning hand because if we thought getting to match the 241 runs was exciting what came next even surpassed that. The mood swings in all of us sat watching what unfolded before us is something that I doubt anyone us will see again, or feel again. Once we smacked 15 we all thought we'd done it. But hey ho, what did we know, Neesham had other thoughts and smacked a huge 6 to sit us all down once again, head in our hands, grown men crying, Pete on his hands and knees wishing for the world to swallow him up... Step forward Jeffrey Archer, he who sent his first ball down as a wide which didn't go down well with us. In truth he nearly cost us the win, watch the last ball he sent down, had the Kiwi missed it would have been called a wide and one extra run and another ball to be delivered... Anyway, the ball was hit, the Kiwi's needed 2, the ball was collected in the deep Roy through a bullet of a throw, Buttler did the rest...!! Praise be, we've won the World Cup...!!! Unbelievable... How did we do it... Robbed 'em, How must the Kiwi's be feeling like now... Oh my days what a game of cricket we have just witnessed... Well done to the England boys, commiserations to the Kiwi's who put up one hell of a fight, cricket was the winner...
Jeffrey Archer Red. You sure? Last time he delivered in London it was a brown envelope to a hooker......allegedly.
I suppose the most relieved man this morning will be Eoin Morgan - he was comprehensively out-thought by Kane Williamson, particularly with the use of his bowlers. I was very impressed by the Kiwis, and especially their captain. Superb performance by Ben Stokes, ably supported by Buttler. I thought they'd given the wrong man the ball when Archer bowled the super over but he got away with it and the rest is history. (The most miraculous criicket story of the day, however, was Yorkshire reaching 500 runs against the runaway leaders. How, I have no idea).
just seen some TV viewing figures for yesterday Wimbledon - peak 9.6 million Cricket - peak 4.5 million Cars - peak 2.5 million cricket would have got over 10 million if it had not been up against the tennis - that is the one thing that annoys me from yesterday, the worst sports scheduling of all time
I've always wondered how they calculate those numbers. Is Big Brother really watching you (i.e. do they know which channel you are watching) or is it based on a representative sample of people? I'm off to google it .....................
Here's what Google told me. I will sleep better now TV ratings are compiled daily by the Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board. BARB recruits 12,000 people across 5,100 households representative of the overall UK viewing public. As well as demography and geography the panel is selected according to platform, whether the TV set or via desktop, laptop or tablet. The devices themselves log data about who in the household is viewing and what they are watching. BARB computers rush the figures out to the broadcasters within hours.
I am always a bit sceptical about BARB figures. I actually did this for a while about 20 years ago. 95% of the data i submitted was accurate, but i inflated the viewing of the sports that I wanted to watch Also i was constantly flicking between tennis and cricket yesterday. How does that work ?
But even I think it's a bit of guesswork in the end... The cricket was spilt over three channels, Channel4, Sky Sports Cricket & Sky Sports Main event, so how did they get to just 4.5m...??
I was always told it was all about the increased demand on the national grid after a particular program with everyone making a brew. It did strike me as nonsense but there you go. A lot of talk about inspiring the next generation of cricketers but if cricket stays on Sky this famous win will be quickly forgotten. I'm sure I read that the Sky audience for England's must win game against India was 10% of that which watched the Lionesses quarter final on the Beeb. Cricket is not popular enough (like football) so can't afford to be on a subscription channel.
Cricket World Cup final: England wrongly awarded extra run against New Zealand, says former umpire Oh Dear. Do you think we should give them the cup? Lucky there was no VAR
Read the papers Ron, says England have won the cup...!! It all just adds to what was an amazing day's play of cricket. Just another story to remind you when you look back in time of a definite 'I remember when' or 'I was there' moment...
Day 12 of 15, and the two Yokozuna Kakuryu 12-0 and Hakuko 11-1 begin to move clear of the rest. Hopefully on the second last or final day, they'll clash. They should do.