England stun New Zealand to book their place in Sunday's T20 World Cup final at the Eden Gardens

Sports Kaleidopedia Feature

Jason Roy during his match-winning knock of 78

At the onset of the T20 World Cup, no one thought that England would have made it to the finals. After being hit by the Gayle storm, they announced themselves by chasing 230 against the Proteas, and in the Semi finals they have humbled the Kiwis, breaking their six-match winning streak. Roy at the top and Butler towards the end gave a fair estimate of the English fire power. Sodhi and Santer who have been the best bowlers of the tournament by some margin were made to look rather ordinary. The way Butler hit those sixes of Sodhi and Santner in the end was really scary. At last we will have a two time T20 World champion: for, India, West Indies and England are former T20 champions.

Kiwi captain Kane Williamson acted like a village idiot as Kiwis leaked 49 runs off the first 4 overs. Why didn't Williamson employ his spinners to begin with? Everyone knows that the English batsmen are comfortable against pace and yet the Kiwi skipper kept feeding them with pace, with Milne bowling at 151 clicks. Brainless cricket on the part of the Blackcaps... maybe it was once again the big match pressure that got the better of them!

As a cricket lover, I am really disappointed to see the Kiwis once again go down like this. In the Super 10s, they were a revelation but just couldn't cope up with the pressure of a knockout match. The real culprit in my opinion is the Kiwi think-tank. Nathan McCullum's absence was suicidal on the slow Kotla wicket. The NZ batsman looked clueless in the final 4-5 hours, thanks to Stokes, Jordan and Ali. But the biggest blunder was not to start off with spin from both the ends. Getting Jason Roy out early could have made the difference and the pressure could have then been built on the rest of the line up. Ultimately, it can be said that Williamson committed Harakiri by playing to England's strength.

P.S. T20 cricket is all about beefy and muscular power hitters with little finesse and it certainly is a disturbing thing for cricket.

- Murtaza Ali Khan