WC final: NZ 130/3 after 31 overs against England

England pacer Chris Woakes struck early as he picked up Martin Guptill in the 7th over of the innings in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 final match against New Zealanad in Lord's, London on Sunday.

Earlier, the Blackcaps captain Kane Williamson had won the toss and elected to bat first.

The toss initially was delayed by 15 minutes due to overnight rain in London. Both the teams are unchanged.

England skipper Eoin Morgan and his team have transformed themselves brilliantly over the last four years after getting eliminated from the 2015 World Cup following their defeat against Bangladesh.

But since then, the ECB has worked with a specific plan and a set of players have performed magnificently under the leadership of Morgan in the 50-over format, converting themselves into a formidable ODI side.

Their brand of cricket has been to attack with the bat, and England now boast one of the best batting line-up among all the sides in the last few years.

Williamson is well and truly aware of the threat of the powerful England batting line-up, particularly their in-form opening pair of Jason Roy and Jonny Bairstow.

“England batsmen, particularly their openers, have been fantastic throughout this whole competition, and prior as well. But there is a huge amount of respect for the match-winners that they have within their side, obviously the top of the order and throughout. But the focus for us is very much about the cricket that we want to play and the performance we want to put on the board and if we do that, we have seen throughout this competition that anybody can beat anybody,” Williamson said at Lord’s.

England: Jason Roy, Jonny Bairstow, Joe Root, Eoin Morgan (capt), Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler(wk), Chris Woakes, Liam Plunkett, Jofra Archer, Adil Rashid, Mark Wood

New Zealand: Martin Guptill, Henry Nicholls, Kane Williamson (capt), Ross Taylor, James Neesham, Tom Latham (wk), Colin de Grandhomme, Mitchell Santner, Matt Henry, Trent Boult, Lockie Ferguson