Trent Boult and the catch that wasn't

How do you sum up the craziest finish to any World Cup final ever? Let's start with two sixes that should never have been.

The first is straightforward, though still surprising. England need 22 off nine with three wickets standing when Ben Stokes, straining every tattooed fibre for the cause, decides the next ball has to go. James Neesham's delivery is pace-off, full and wide of off stump, and Stokes heaves it towards the long-on boundary, where Trent Boult circles around for what will surely be the game-winning - World Cup-winning - catch. But he takes an involuntary step back after holding the ball above his head, treading on the rope in the instant before he attempts to relay it to Martin Guptill.

Boult has the chance to make amends as he steps up to bowl the final over, but what happens next will defy all rational explanations (including the one from the officials, as it turns out). England need 15 from six balls, which quickly becomes 15 from four. Stokes then pumps Boult into the Mound Stand. Nine from three, far from a fait accompli.

But a fate accompli, maybe. The next ball is a full toss that Stokes swats leg side. He knows he has to get back on strike, and dives full length for the crease as Guptill's throw arrows in from deep midwicket. As Stokes stretches out an arm, the ball careens off the back of his bat before trundling up the hill towards the pavilion. It crosses the rope and England have knocked six more off their target in almost unimaginable fashion.

Except, as emerges after the subsequent Super Over dramatics, it should only have been five - because Stokes and Adil Rashid had not crossed for their second run when Guptill let go of the ball. New Zealand would go on to lose on boundary countback, and England would finally claim a men's 50-over World Cup - by the barest of margins.