2015 Cricket World Cup

Result

Player of the Match (Final)

James Faulkner, Australia

Tournament format

14 teams in two pools of seven, round-robin, top four per pool to the quarter-finals, then semi-finals and the final -- the same simplified structure introduced in 2011. Co-hosted by Australia and New Zealand, the second time these two nations had jointly staged the tournament (after 1992).

Full match archive

Every match of the 2015 tournament, not just the final — all 48 group-stage and semi-final matches, plus the final round-robin standings. See all 48 matches →

Final: match context

Australia won a fifth World Cup title in 2015, beating first-time finalists New Zealand by 7 wickets in front of a record Australian cricket crowd of over 93,000 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, a fitting home-soil conclusion to a tournament co-hosted across the Tasman. New Zealand won the toss and batted, but lost captain Brendon McCullum in the very first over, bowled by Mitchell Starc in a blow that set the tone for a difficult day at the crease. Grant Elliott's 83 was New Zealand's only real resistance, and disciplined bowling from James Faulkner (3 for 36) and Mitchell Johnson (3 for 30) restricted the innings to just 183 all out in 45 overs -- a modest total against an Australian batting line-up playing at home. Australia's own chase stumbled early, Aaron Finch out for a duck in just the second over, but David Warner (45), Steve Smith (56 not out) and Michael Clarke (74) steadied the innings comfortably; Clarke fell in the 32nd over with only 9 more runs required, and Shane Watson and Smith finished the job with a boundary off Matt Henry in the 34th over to complete a 7-wicket win. For New Zealand, simply reaching the final was itself historic -- their first World Cup final appearance after having lost every previous semi-final the country had ever contested across the tournament's history, a heartbreak that had followed the Black Caps through decades of near-misses. The final also marked the end of several distinguished Australian careers: Michael Clarke, Brad Haddin and Mitchell Johnson all retired from one-day international cricket immediately after the match, with Clarke specifically dedicating the win to Phillip Hughes, the Australian batsman who had died in November 2014 after being struck by a bouncer during a domestic match -- a tragedy that had cast a long shadow over Australian cricket in the months leading into the tournament. New Zealand's Martin Guptill was the tournament's leading run-scorer with 547, a tally boosted enormously by a then-record unbeaten 237 in the quarter-final against West Indies, while Starc and New Zealand's own Trent Boult tied as the leading wicket-takers with 22 apiece. The tournament also produced a genuine off-field flashpoint: the India-Bangladesh quarter-final drew fierce controversy over several umpiring decisions that went against Bangladesh, prompting then-ICC president Mustafa Kamal -- a former Bangladeshi government minister -- to publicly threaten resignation over what he considered unfair officiating, one of the more unusual governance disputes to spill into public view during a World Cup.

Sources

• Wikipedia: 2015 Cricket World Cup
• Wikipedia: 2015 Cricket World Cup final
• ESPNcricinfo