England are Cricket World Cup Champions for the first time after lifting the trophy in one of the most dramatic sporting occasions ever at Lords Cricket Ground.  England Captain, the Irishman Eoin Morgan followed in the footsteps of Shoreditch Street Art tours in getting his hands on the revered trophy.

Yes, you read that correctly! First, just a little background as it is possible that some followers of Shoreditch Street Art Tours may not be keeping fully up to date on a minute by minute basis with developments in the world of cricket.   The Cricket World Cup has been hosted by England and Wales Test and County Cricket Board and England played New Zealand in the final today.   It was the tensest, most exciting closest game ever, the two teams ended with exactly the same number of runs, so a deciding “Super Over” was played and both teams scored exactly the same number of runs, so then it went to the third method of deciding the game and England were the winners, winning the World Cup for the first time.

England have reached the final on three previous occasions but for lack of an Irishman as captain failed to win any of those attempts.

This would not have come to pass were it not for possibly one of the jammiest flukes ever seen on any sports pitch.  With 3 balls left the required run rate had sky rocketed and was looking impossible, England batsman Stokes scrambled to make his ground for a 2 when the incoming throw from 60 yards away struck the bat of the diving Stokes and diverted to the boundary for what under the laws of the game was a 4 to add to the 2 already picked up for running between the wickets.  Without those 4 extra runs the cup would have been the Kiwi’s.

If Stokes had not had to dive, if the ball had come in fractionally later, if it had bounced 2 inches higher to clear Stoke’s bat…we would have a different outcome but these things did not happen and a jubilant nation instantly forgot its embarrassment.

So how did Shoreditch Street Art Tours fit in with this excitement?  Well, in May last year, Young People’s Laureate For London Caleb Femi wrote a poem anticipating the international festival of cricket due to visit England, the poem was written up on a wall on Brick Lane by commercial spraycan artists Graffiti Life and the World Cup Trophy was brought to Brick Lane for a photo shoot.

At that moment, the Shoreditch Street Art Tour turned the corner onto Brick Lane and found itself in the privileged position of being able to pose with the World Cup Trophy.

Five minutes later, official snaps taken, the trophy was whisked away –we fluked our timing with the finesse of a Ben Stokes dive.

My bike ride to Shoreditch takes me past the front gates of Lords Cricket Ground every day and one sunny day in May I spotted a curious sight, the post box outside the ground had turned blue overnight.   It wasn’t a piece of “Blue period” graffiti however, outside each venue where World Cup games were played a post box was painted blue in celebration.   It qualifies as art on the street rather than street art perhaps.

Congratulations to England and commiserations to New Zealand