There is something extra pleasurable about defeating Australia or Germany it brings a spring to the step.

They are both cheats who can't bear to lose, the problem is they rarely do.

England will be hot favourites. However our record at Lords is not the best, whereas our record at Edgbaston (where we beat the Aussies yesterday) is superb (11 wins in a row).
It will be an interesting game between 2 sides who both normally choke when they get in such positions, although it should be noted that New Zealand have won the 50 over Champions Trophy before, which is one more 50 over trophy than England have won.

It's a total farce that the umpire who gave Jason Roy out yesterday get's to umpire the final. That was one of the worst umpire decisions I can remember in years and he should have been fined instead of Roy.

Think that is why they lost the rights - and because the R & A didn't like Gary Lineker being the host (too smug and full of himself..)

I remember the days of sport being switch around and that was with 4/5 channels - even Channel 4 with the cricket put it on Film 4 at the weekend

Now you have the non-sporting fans complaining as well their soap or reality show are cancelled.

Not sure the Beeb have enough sport for a dedicated channel but guess they could use it for highlights and past events....

Need to save some money apparently though...

My understand is that if the ball hits the wickets the third umpire can give out only if more than 50% of the ball hits the wickets. Else he goes with the onfield umpire for that aspect.

If the umpire gives notout and the fielding team reviews,even if the ball touches the stumps and less than 50% not out stands.Perhaps the rationale is that the umpires call is respected when the decision is so close it could not be seen by the naked eye.

I don't profess to being any authority on this issue.
Perhaps the principle might at some stage be applied to exceedingly tight offside calls in football !