I’m not entirely sure that I believe this, but it does appear to be true.
Possibly no one else believed it either, which would explain why South Africa were utterly humiliated and Australia well beaten by an England side that no one gave much of a chance going in to the tournament. They were 12/1 going into the event, with only Bangladesh, Zimbabwe, Ireland and Afghanistan offering better odds. They were beaten by West Indies in their first game, and would have gone out of the tournament had rain not saved them against Ireland. From then all, the game looked very easy indeed. No, I can’t explain it. Like I said, I still don’t quite believe it.
I’ve always liked and respected Tony Cozier, but he went up in my estimation even more when he said, at the half-way point, “England need 148 runs to win their first major international trophy – in the men’s game, anyway.” I doubt many of the normal TMS crew would have bothered to have mentioned the England Women’s Team’s three World Cup wins in this context.
Apparently at least some of the Aussie men’s team stayed on to watch the Aussie women beat NZ, rather than going straight to the pub, which I approved of.