Writing on 21 July 2019, I have been thinking about close and tied matches a lot lately. The cricket world cup was decided on the finest of margins last week, as was the Wimbledon Gentleman’s Final – the first ever to go to tie break:
Today, Janie and I were battling out the tightest of sets of tennis, as oft we do. We ended the match at 5-5 as a tie. We tend to do that if the scores are level at 5-5 or 6-6. Janie and I believe in ties.
Of course there is a huge difference between amateur sport and professional sport. But Janie also felt strongly that the 2019 world cup should similarly have been determined as a tie and shared between England and New Zealand. I’m not 100% sure; it certainly isn’t the modern way for tournaments.
But on the way home from our epic tennis tied match today, my mind wandered to a match that Janie and I witnessed in that glorious and exciting summer of cricket that was 2005. We went to Lord’s to see the final of the one day international (ODI) tri-series between Australia, Bangladesh and England; a final between England and Australia that ended as a tie.
How was that tie resolved, I wondered. I couldn’t remember. So I looked it up.
Here is a link to the scorecard and Cricinfo resources on that 2005 tied match.
In fact, back in 2005, the playing conditions for that tri-series – presumably agreed between the three nations but ultimately under the auspices of the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) rather than the International Cricket Council (ICC) – determined that final as a tie if the scores were level after 50 overs.
England and Australia shared the trophy.
No super over (I don’t recall ever seeing those back then), no boundaries count back (I don’t recall seeing that until this most recent ICC World Cup), no priority to the team with the most wickets remaining at the end of their innings (that method had been discredited quite early in the Duckworth- Lewis era as anathema to the mathematical logic of wickets and overs as being algorithmic-equivalent resources that can become exhausted).
It had been a great match, that 2005 ODI final. At first we thought England were way ahead…
…even when Australia crawled back to post 196 runs…
…until England ended up 33/5 and we thought England had blown it…
…until England somehow managed to crawl back to 196/9, securing a couple of leg byes off the last ball to tie the match.
Perhaps others in the crowd thought differently, but Janie and I left the ground feeling thoroughly satisfied with our day’s entertainment, the thrills and spills of the ebb and flow…
…and a feeling that justice had been done to a hard-fought match when the trophy was shared for a tie.
Who would have won on a super over? We’ll never know.
Who would have won on boundary count-backs? Australia.
Who would have won on the basis of fewer wickets lost? England.
Who gives a fig how the match would have been determined if the playing conditions had been different? Only a pedant, really, as either or both teams might have played the final few balls differently if other playing conditions were being applied.
It was a summer of fine margins, really. England prevailed in the tournament that really mattered, the Ashes…
…we were there that day too – the final day of the 2005 Ashes series – to be Ogblogged in the fullness of time. But that Ashes win came as a result of a drawn match at the end and a couple of really tight finishes, especially the Edgbaston test (also to be Ogblogged in the fullness).
But in early July, the excitement was that tied ODI. In fact, that tied ODI match at Lord’s was not the only tie I witnessed that season…indeed not even the only tie I witnessed that month, July 2005 – I even participated in one:
What a season that 2005 season was. Not least because of the tied matches.