Finally, cricket fans will see a new winner this time. None of the teams, who will play final, never lifted a world cup before. England reached in the final 4th time, and first time since 1992, after 27 years, on the other hand, New Zealand reached to final second time, in fact, reached consecutive finals, although England did it as well, and England was the second team, who reached in consecutive finals after West Indies, who reached three consecutive finals. After England, Australia had the record of four consecutive finals, Sri Lanka did it in two consecutive finals and after Sri Lanka, New Zealand is the latest team.
In the first five world cup finals, the team, who bat first, became the winner of the tournament, but in 1996 Sri Lanka broke the barrier and became the first champion, who successfully chased down the target, and Australia continued in the next world cup. Since last two world cup, the winner of the tournament chased down the target successfully, in the current world cup is the last world cup of the decade, so interesting to see that tomorrow the barrier of the decade could be broken or the decade will become the decade for the chasing.
Lords cricket ground, at London, is the venue for the final, Lords is going to witness 5th world cup final and 7th different team to play. Weather suggest few showers early morning, and then mostly cloudy during the day, particularly match time, which may help to pacers. One more speciality of the Lord’s ground is, from the Pavilion End, the slope is from the off side to leg side, which favours the bowler, who bowls from opposite of pavilion end. Most of the time the pitch usually behaves sticky, which creates little difficulty for the batsman, but overall the pitch is batting paradise.
The encounter looks interesting as New Zealand’s strength is bowling, on the other hand, England’s strength is batting, but in normal circumstances, both the teams would like to bat first after winning the toss. New Zealand would like to bat first, so that their bowling attack can control to defend the total, on the opposite side, England would like to bat first and to make the big total, so they can make the pressure on the other team. It will also be interesting to see that, in the cloudy weather, the toss-winning team will do bat first or bowl first, though since the last couple of years, and particularly in the world cup 2019, the toss-winning team preferred to bat first.
Both the team would like to stay with winning combination, as New Zealand would like to go with 4 batsmen, 1 wicketkeeper, 3 all-rounders and 3 bowlers. On the other hand, England would like to go with 2 batsmen, 1 batting all-rounder, 2 wicketkeepers, 1 all-rounder and 5 bowlers.
New Zealand 11: M. Guptill, H. Nicholls, K. Williamson, R. Taylor, T. Latham, J. Neesham, C. De Grandhomme, M. Santner, M. Henry, L. Ferguson, T. Boult
England 11: J. Roy, J. Bairstow, J.Root, E. Morgan, B. Stokes, J. Buttler, C. Woakes, J. Archer, L. Plunkett, A. Rashid, M. Wood.
