It may mean nothing to him but New Zealand captain Kane Williamson was voted player of the ICC World Cup after his team lost to England in a Super Over in the final at Lord’s, London, Sunday.
Williamson’s team tied with England in the match after both teams scored 241 and then in the Super Over, both with 15 runs, before England won by virtue of scoring more boundaries in the match to register the closest ever World Cup match let alone ODI.
Williamson led the Black Caps to their second successive World Cup final and played his part in a jaw-dropping finale.
The 28-year-old shined with the bat getting 578 runs, including two hundreds and two half-centuries, and leading his team superbly. But Williamson, humble to the last, thanked his teammates for his accolade.
“Individual performances only contribute to something that is greater than what you produce,” he said after collecting the prize.
“The idea is that you help the team get over the line. The only thing you think of is what more I could have done, especially in a game of fine margins.
“All our guys in our side should take a lot of pride. For me, individual accolades are always secondary to efforts that the whole squad, the support staff as well, put into the bucket. That was a huge part in us getting the opportunity to play in the final. That is always the main cause and the result of what I try and do.”
He added that he didn’t regret asking Martin Guptill, who had a terrible run of form in the tournament, to bat in the Super Over either.
And while the fairy-tale ending wasn’t to be, the man who took over captaincy duty from Brendon McCullum a year after appearing in a World Cup final for the first time certainly proved he was up to the task.
“I’d like to thank the New Zealand team for the fight they showed to keep us in the tournament and get us this far,” he added.
“A tie in the final, to lose is devastating, the players have performed at such a high level through the tournament. Both sides showed a lot of heart, a lot of fight. For it to go to the last ball, and the last ball of the next match, it was pretty hard.”
England captain Eoin Morgan meanwhile said he focused on trying to get the team to relax ahead of the Super Over.
“I encouraged them to smile, laugh, enjoy, because it was such a ridiculous situation where there was quite a lot of pressure in that particular moment,” Morgan said.
“It was to release a bit of tension and the guys responded brilliantly. To play in a Super Over at the end of an extremely draining day takes a huge amount out of you, so it was, remain calm but make sure we enjoy this. Whether we win or lose, we have done incredible things.”
World Cup Finals Results
1975: West Indies 291-8 (60-over game), bt. Australia 274, by 17 runs, at London
1979: West Indies 286-9 (60), bt. England 194, by 92 runs, at London
1983: India 183 (60), bt. West Indies 140, by 43 runs, at London
1987: Australia 253-5 (50), bt. England 246-8, by 7 runs, at Kolkata, India
1992: Pakistan 249-6 (50), bt. England 227, by 22 runs, at Melbourne, Australia
1996: Sri Lanka 245-3 (50), bt Australia 241-7, by 7 wickets, at Lahore, Pakistan
1999: Australia 133-2 (50), bt. Pakistan 132, by 8 wickets, at London
2003: Australia 359-2 (50), bt. India 234, by 125 runs, at Johannesburg
2007: Australia 281-4 (38), bt. Sri Lanka 215-8, by 53 runs (DL method), at Bridgetown, Barbados
2011: India 277-4 (50), bt. Sri Lanka 274-6, by 6 wickets, at Mumbai, India
2015: Australia 186-3 (50), bt. New Zealand 183, by 7 wickets, at Melbourne
2019: England 241 (50) bt. New Zealand 241-8 after Super Over on boundaries tiebreaker 27-14, London