The England cricket team finally won the elusive ICC Cricket World Cup trophy in 2019 to add to its glorious and rich cricket history. England, the home of cricket, has seen many ups and downs for their International cricket team in the cricketing sphere. Their history is filled with exciting turns and events, from nerve-wracking encounters to controversial England Cricket Board decisions. Cricreads has compiled a list of the ten best moments in England cricket to commemorate such fascinating events.
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Here are the 10 memorable moments of the England Cricket team:
1- World Cup 2019 Final
Perhaps the most controversial and eye-raising game in the history of international cricket. A match that England won but New Zealand did not lose. Sounds intriguing? Well, that may be the best way in which this epic World Cup final is describable.
New Zealand batted first in the final to set up a modest target of 239 runs. However, England could not close the match in 50 overs and ultimately, the game was tied to bring the first-ever super over in the ICC CWC final. England posted 15 on the board in the super-over, but the Kiwis equaled them in their turn to bat.
The match tied for the second time and revealed a bizarre rule that declared England the World Cup winners. The law states that if a super over is tied in International matches, then the team with the most boundaries in the completed innings will be declared the victor. Somehow or another, England finally managed to lift the trophy since its inception in 1975.
2- First Major ICC trophy in 2010
England cricket team won its first significant ICC trophy in 2010 by triumphing with 7 wickets against Australia in the T20i World Cup final. England chased down 147 runs with ease.
Kieswetter scored 63 off 49 while Kevin Pietersen made 47 off 31 to help England win the game. Paul Collingwood, the skipper, hit winning runs for England to lift the T20i World Cup trophy.
3- Highest ever Score in ODIs
England has registered the highest-ever score in One Day Internationals with 481 runs against Australia in the 3rd ODI of Australia’s tour to England in 2018. The hosts hit 21 sixes in the monumental inning and smashed the sharp Australia bowling attack.
Alex Hales scored 147 off 92, while Johnny Bairstow made a stellar 139 off 92. The English captain Eoin Morgan batted with a strike rate above 200 in the death overs. Morgan propelled England’s total by his enterprising knock of 67 off 30 deliveries.
4- Gutsy Ashes Knock by Stokes
Ashes 2019 will be remembered for Ben Stokes’ miracle of an inning in the third Test of the series against Australia at Headingley. England bundled out for 67 in their first inning to end up chasing a mammoth 359 on a deteriorating track in Leeds.
No one gave England any chance, but Ben Stokes showed belief in his abilities to create a historic win against the Aussies. England was 286-9 and needed 73 runs more to win the game. Stokes had tail-ender Jack Leach as the partner for climbing up the massive target.
The duo formed an epic 76 runs stand, in which Leach contributed only one run. If ever there was a match in history that was won single-handedly by a player, the Headingley Test will rank right up at the top of the pecking order. Ben Stokes scored an unbeaten 135* off 219.
5- Anderson’s landmark 600th Test wicket
The greatest swing bowler in Test history, James Anderson is the leading wicket-taker among the current crop of international cricketers. Anderson sits in 4th place behind Muralitharan, Shane Warne, and Anil Kumble in the list of most wickets taken by a bowler in Tests.
The only ever pace bowler to breach 600 Test wickets accomplished this extraordinary milestone in the third Test of Pakistan’s tour to England in 2020. He dismissed Azhar Ali on the fifth and final day of the Test to achieve this historic feat.
6- Australian white-wash in 2018
Under the captaincy of Eoin Morgan, England became the first and only team in ODI cricket history to white-wash Australia in a five-match ODI series. England dominated Australia in all three departments throughout the series to register the thumping series victory.
The third ODI of the series saw England pose the highest-ever total in ODI of 481 runs. Australia could not recover from that thrashing and conceded losses to hand England a historic ODI series win in the following games.
7- Alastair Cook’s 10,000th run in Tests
In 2016 against Sri Lanka in the second Test, Alastair Cook became the youngest-ever batsman to breach 10,000 runs in Test history. He broke Sachin Tendulkar’s record by achieving the feat aged 31 years and 7 months.
Cook is also the only English cricketer who has surpassed 10,000 runs in Test cricket. He retired at the young age of 33 in 2018 and lost the chance of breaking Tendulkar’s record for most runs in Test cricket. He collected more than 12,000 runs in his illustrious career on the field.
8- Inception of Ashes
Australia toured England for a one-off Test at The Oval in 1882. The visitors won the match, and England media responded raucously to the loss. The Sporting Times published an obituary in its newspaper to mark the first loss on British soil against the Kangaroos.
The next tour of England then got dubbed as the hunt for retrieving the Ashes of Test cricket. England won the series and was presented with a small urn to officially mark the beginning of the greatest rivalry in Test cricket history.
9- Jim Laker’s sensational 19 wickets in a Test
Jim Laker, the former English cricketer, became the first person in Test history to dismiss all ten batters of the opposition in an inning. He achieved the rare feat in Australia’s second inning of the 4th Test of Ashes 1956.
Laker took 19 wickets in the match, which is still a record for the most wickets by any bowler in a Test match. He ran through the Aussies and helped England beat Australia by an inning and 170 runs.
10- Broad owns Australia
Stuart Broad, the stalwart of England cricket, bowled one of the best spells ever in Ashesh’s history when he took 8/15 in 9.3 overs to completely decimate the Australian batting unit. In the fourth Test of Ashes 2015 at Trent Bridge, Broad was a force to reckon with.
England wrapped Australia on a meager 60 runs, with Micheal Clarke and Mitchell Johnson being the only batters to score in double figures. The bowling effort from Broad proved that he is a worthy partner for the greatest pace bowler in Tests, James Anderson.
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