"No One Lost Final, But There Was A Crowned Winner": Kane Williamson On World Cup Loss

New Zealand lost World Cup 2019 to England despite having scored equal runs in both the final and the Super Over as a boundary-count tie-breaker rule helped the International Cricket Council (ICC) crown the home team as champions for the first time in their history. After the heart-breaking loss, New Zealand skipper Kane Williamson said his team were not defeated on the pitch, but became a victim of "fine print" in the rules. "At the end of the day nothing separated us, no one lost the final, but there was a crowned winner and there it is," he told Newstalk ZB.

In a first, the World Cup winners were decided with the most number of boundaries hit.

After the scores of both England and New Zealand tied at 241, the final match was sent into a Super Over, which also ended in a tie with both team having scored 15 runs each.

Eventually, the winner was decided by the number of boundaries scored. England scored 26 boundaries in total in the entire duration of the match as compared to 17 by New Zealand and were thus crowned as champions.

New Zealand coach Gary Stead called for the World Cup's rules to be overhauled, labelling the showpiece final "hollow".

"It's a very, very hollow feeling that you can play 100 overs and score the same amount of runs and still lose the game, but that's the technicalities of sport," Stead told reporters in remarks released by New Zealand Cricket on Tuesday.

He said such a thrilling match, which has been hailed by many experts as the greatest One-day game in history, deserved a better way to determine the result.

(With AFP inputs)