ICC World T20 2016 : England reach World T20 final

Flamboyant England reach World T20 final

England (159/3) beat New Zealand (153/8) by seven wickets
England are in the final of the World Twenty20, to the surprise of everyone but themselves. They have played fearless, flamboyant cricket to do so, and against favourites New Zealand they produced their best performance of the lot. 

• England v New Zealand: as it happened 

The serenity with which they went about their business suggested they always knew things would pan out like this. They played like no harm would ever befall them: cricket that felt not just adept but blessed, not just skilful but deeply and profoundly enlightened.

If there was a faintly surreal tinge to the second half of this game, as England moonwalked their way to victory with almost three overs to spare, then it was because English teams are not supposed to play like this. They are not supposed to win like this. They are certainly not supposed to light up tournaments like this. 

Barely a year ago at the World Cup, New Zealand humiliated them, and in much less than 20 overs. Much has been written about the transformation of the side under Trevor Bayliss and Paul Farbrace. But not even the most optimistic of gambling men would have seen this coming.

Without prejudicing the result of Sunday’s final against India or the West Indies, we can already say with confidence that this side have breathed new life into English cricket. They have provided a clean break with the acrimony and apathy of the recent past, healed wounds, changed minds.

Of course, England still have one game to go, but the parallels with their victory in this competition in 2010 are now becoming too stark to ignore. A settled team settled almost by accident; a freewheeling style borne of no great expectations; a lick of luck, a favourable draw. Even the captain’s struggles are familiar: six years ago in the Caribbean, Paul Collingwood could barely buy a run. Here, Eoin Morgan continued his run of rotten form by getting out first ball.

It scarcely mattered. Jason Roy’s best score in T20 internationals was also his best innings in an England shirt. He made 78 off 44 balls, terminating the tournament’s most feared bowling attack with extreme prejudice, drowning New Zealand in his hubris. By the time the captain came in – and swiftly departed – England needed just 44 from eight overs.

It was a complete performance. England’s death bowling was brilliant, restricting the target to 154 when 180 or even 200 looked possible at one stage. Ben Stokes and Chris Jordan – a talented but wayward fast bowler miraculously reinvented as a world-class purveyor of 90mph yorkers – helped restrict New Zealand to just 64 for seven in their last 10 overs. They had been 89 for one at the halfway stage.

There were sound cricketing reasons for this – the intelligent lengths bowled, Morgan’s shrewd field placings, the slightly sticky pitch – but there was something else, something less tangible happening too. Stokes got wickets with consecutive full tosses clubbed straight to long off. Moeen Ali, perhaps England’s least agile fielder, took a brilliant running catch off his own bowling. Possessed by some spooky, other-worldly power that even they will struggle to explain in years to come, England were good even when they were bad.

Chasing 154, England batted fearlessly. Roy helped himself to four boundaries in the first over, bowled by Corey Anderson, and the rest of the innings seemed merely to echo out from that initial burst. Some of Roy’s shots defied belief – the cut over mid-off for six, in particular. And with every boundary you could see New Zealand’s shoulders slumping, see their resolve cracking.

In desperation, captain Kane Williamson introduced the spin of Mitchell Santner in the fifth over, but Roy simply took a step towards the tournament’s leading bowler and swatted him over his head for four. By the end of the Powerplay, England were 67 without loss, and the game was virtually won.

After Roy and Morgan were out to successive balls, Joe Root and Jos Buttler took charge. Buttler finished things in his own inimitable fashion: four, six, six, one, six. The arms were lifted well before the ball had landed in the crowd. England’s players flooded onto the field.

Nobody cared that their captain was out of form. Nobody cared that Hales has barely scored a run. Nobody cared that Adil Rashid has barely made a dent in this tournament. Nobody cared about the drastically different surface they can expect in Kolkata, or the possibility of playing the host nation in front of a hostile crowd.

Nobody was thinking about any of that at all. At that moment every England player was simply a character in a collective dream: just passing through, feeling without thinking. England are in the final, and suddenly it seems like the most natural thing in the world.