Trent Boult’s last over hat-trick stood out in New Zealand’s fine bowling show against Australia at Lord’s, but it was Mitchell Starc who claimed the final honours, finishing with a five-wicket haul to help his side to their fifth straight win at the 2019 World Cup. Here’s Steven Lynch’s report from the 2020 Wisden Almanack.

Australia v New Zealand
Match 37, ICC Cricket World Cup 2019
Lord’s, London
June 29, 2019

A replay of the 2015 final proved similarly one-sided. On a baking hot day, the men in black really felt the heat when Starc returned to remove their talisman, Williamson. He had none for 16 before that, but finished with five for 26, then the best figures in a one-day international at Lord’s.

Earlier, things had looked brighter for New Zealand. With a pitch already used for the England–Australia match proving sluggish, and affording occasional turn and bounce, they reduced Australia to 92 for five.  Finch was pinned by Boult, and Warner gloved a screamer from Ferguson. He then had a disbelieving Smith caught off a full-blooded pull at leg gully by the flying Guptill, who had already dropped two tough chances, including Khawaja on nought.

But Australia were rescued by Carey, who thumped 11 fours in a forthright career-best, and the adhesive Khawaja, who lasted 129 balls. He was part of Boult’s final-over hat-trick, his second in ODIs but New Zealand’s first in the World Cup.

Williamson might have turned to him earlier during a sixth-wicket stand of 107; instead, with spinners Santner and Sodhi lacking control, he fiddled through seven overs of off-breaks himself. New Zealand navigated Starc’s first spell, creeping to 29 before Nicholls fell to Behrendorff in the tenth over, but they couldn’t survive his later bursts.

Williamson, usually clinical in his nurdles to third man, feathered to the keeper, and Taylor skyed Cummins; the dangerous de Grandhomme then obligingly pounded his first ball to long-off, to become Smith’s first victim in ODIs since November 2014 (he was one of 15 bowlers used, equalling a World Cup record). As New Zealand stuttered towards a second successive defeat, it was a rare attacking shot among the dots, of which there were 172.

First published in the 2020 Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack