T20 World Cup final report: Redemption, songs and broken arcs
As the captains headed to the middle for the toss in the early Melbourne evening, the threat of rain still lingered above the MCG. Fortunately Ravi Shastri was in charge of proceedings and, even by his vocally euphoric standards, conducted them as if he had just snorted several lines of Wasim Akram’s recently published autobiography. A man yelling at clouds is a famously futile way of trying to achieve anything, but when that man is Ravi Shastri it appears clouds can actually be scared away. Against all odds, the final commenced on time.
The day had begun with Glenn Maxwell showing typical innovation and breaking his leg while running around a tennis court. The injury news soon returned to the more predictable, though, as it was announced Mark Wood wouldn’t be playing. For some fast bowlers, the constant whirring themselves up into a frenzy makes them intense, snarling dervishes. For others, like Wood and Shaheen Afridi, the sheer joy at their Exocet art combined with the sheer inevitability that their bodies will sometimes be too fragile to cope, makes them self-effacing, ebullient and phlegmatic. Both were to have days to test the latter quality.
Australia had failed to make the knock-out stages but were not unrepresented. England’s backroom staff, ever an interesting plethora, on this occasion included Mike Hussey, a man who once played a World T20 semi-final innings so absurd to defeat Pakistan that Mr Cricket immediately started crying tears of incomprehension as if he’d broken the game itself. Pakistan had Matthew Hayden, whose reputation as a flat track bully has morphed into that of a cricketer whisperer, uttering sweet technical nothings into players’ ears in the nets all tournament and galvanising his, or rather, Saqlain Mushtaq’s, side with understated and avuncular speeches in the dressing room. For most evening matches the now rather craggy Hayden had taken to wearing a PCB hoodie, making him look as if he was on secondment from running the Death Star. Today, he just went with a baseball cap and Pakistan’s batting, even their middle-order which had been so imperious against South Africa and Bangladesh, increasingly hissed to a standstill.
Sam Curran began the deflation, getting Rizwan to do a decent impression of the stadium music by dragging on in infuriating fashion. Why is Curran so effective? Command of his variations? Angles that uncomfortably tuck up a batsman like a lackadaisical parent? Running in with a face like thunder but somehow also that of a member of a puppy boyband? Hard to say, but probably his core skill is to have people shaking their heads in disbelief as he’s handed a player of the tournament trophy. There’s only one thing worse than being talked about, and that’s being talked about intently by opposition analysts.
Adil Rashid continued Pakistan’s stutter of an innings. He bowled a wicket maiden, removing Babar no less, with Shan Masood stood helpless up the other end. While it was rather cynical of the England leg spinner to effectively neuter a global final merely to impress his new county skipper, his final figures and Masood’s own heroic, slightly uncharacteristic, efforts to bash Pakistan into contention meant Yorkshire, after a difficult period, were finally getting some good publicity on the global stage. The same couldn’t be said for Iftikhar, who walked in to replace the Pakistan captain, and flailed around at Rashid’s last three balls as if his hands were possessed by bees. Shadab briefly Shadabbed. Pakistan jiggered their way to 138.
With Shastri off commentary, England’s innings began in drizzle, which proved more problematic for Shaheen’s normally pristine hair than his inswinger. Hales had already completed his own redemption arc in the semi-final, but having cleaned up his act in recent years found Pakistan’s modern version of Akram doing the same to his stumps. Salt flailed and died by the sword and so Stokes arrived. Buttler struggled against Naseem, his only connection in an entire over being a scoop for six in a passage of play that encapsulated the brilliance of both men. In what was something of a relay wicket, Rauf nicked off the England skipper the next over.
Brook walked out, immediately flicking Rauf off his pads with the sort of icy poise normally only found in Marais Erasmus’s veins. It wasn’t to last and his stand with England’s 2019 multiple hero became a frenetic affair. In one particularly manic period of play Stokes twice dived to make his ground, presumably trying to up the boundary count the same way as he had in the 2019 World Cup final. Pakistan, vigilantly, refused to fall into the same trap as Martin Guptill. The drizzle and Stokes, in a historic but peculiar innings, both continued with various degrees of intent.
With Brook gone and England at 97-4 with five left, Babar brought back Afridi. The ghosts of Allan Lamb and Chris Lewis’s 1992 dismissals at the same ground briefly flickered as his first delivery, delivered with grimace on and pace off, beat Moeen. Nasser Hussain, his voice replete with almost the same concern, frustration and despair for a young Pakistani left-armer as in 2010, implored Babar to remove him from the attack. The Pakistan captain, with no choice, did so and Afridi left the field and slunk down disconsolate on the sidelines as the Pakistan bench, perhaps giving themselves special dispensation under the circumstances, dared to ruffle his hair.
Back on field Babar had a choice to make and, for the sake of narrative alone, rather botched it. Iftikhar took the ball and completed both the over and his own miserable day by being spanked for a four and six by Stokes. Forget any match-up data, surely with the mainly green crowd baying for Pakistan to once again trample on logic’s grave, it should have been Nawaz that Babar turned too? Nawaz the man at rock bottom after Kohli’s group stage assault back in the final to somehow clinch an unlikely win. Earlier in the tournament Babar gave a team talk that tried to shield Nawaz from criticism but inadvertently singled him out for it. The Pakistan captain was rightly and hilariously spoofed as Michael Scott. Here was his chance to get to say, “Well, well, well. How the turntables”. Alas, it was not to be.
After a cameo from Moeen and an even briefer one (off one ball) from Livingstone, England prevailed. Stokes, though he’s had a fairly promising career since 2016, could finally rise from his Carlos Brathwaite induced haunches. In any case, this England side doesn't really do dwelling on the past or navel gazing. As Livingstone walked out to bat, Stokes gave him a playful little chest bump as if they were having a jolly old muckabout in training. There’ll be no pressure here, cheers.
A beaming, marvellous Buttler and England paraded the trophy around the ground, including in front of the Shane Warne Stand, a reminder of one of the MCG’s lost too soon sons. Another of the ground’s great, possibly greatest, heroes was also missed. How Dean Jones would have loved to have seen Pakistan, and some of the players he nurtured in the PSL as he helped nurture the whole tournament, competing to be kings on the very turf that he so often ruled.
Today, though, it was England, despite enforced changes to both their team and anthem, who were crowned. Hussain has, rightly as ever, received plaudits all tournament for his punditry but it was the man he often ribbed on Sky that can also feel chuffed with his year’s work. For all the jibes Rob Key took when working with Hussain and Atherton, they were always grounded in a respect for his views from his two more illustrious colleagues. His appointment as managing director of England men’s cricket in April was greeted with aghast looks in some quarters - not wholly unreasonably given his lack of experience in any such role - but not by his Sky buddies. In going on to appoint Brendon McCullum and Matthew Mott as coaches of the Test and white ball sides respectively, Key reinvigorated the former and ensured the continuity of the latter. He specifically spoke of giving Mott the job to mitigate the eventuality that Eoin Morgan, the conjuror of England’s white ball juju de vivre, retired. Morgan went, the relentless attacking spirit stayed. England, a nation of introverts until the third pint, have extroverted their way to simultaneously holding two World Cups.