In a bit of an upset, Australia demolished New Zealand in the Cricket World Cup final. After having a strong offensive showing throughout the tournament — including a walk-off six-pointer to go to the final — the all blacks were held to only 183 points. In fact, five players were held to zero points in 45 overs.

On the other side, the offense of David Warner, Steve Smith and Michael Clarke — together they registered 184 of Australia’s 186 points — was enough for the Aussies to win the World Cup trophy. In fact, New Zealand was only able to get three players out before giving up the winning runs. This is the fifth time Australia has hoisted the Cricket World Cup trophy, but it is the first time they ever won on their own soil.

Australian bowler James Faulkner took home man of the match despite the team’s impressive offense. The bowler played a vital role throughout the tournament and was a key reason why Australia was able to keep New Zealand to 183 points. On top of this, Australia’s Mitchell Starc left the world cup as the number one ranked bowler in ODI and was named player of the tournament.

On top of this, Australia’s Michael Clarke and New Zealand’s Daniel Vettori effectively retired from ODI. Clarke finished this World Cup with 219 runs in seven matches and Vettori is one of only three players with over 4,000 runs and 300 wicket takes in ICC World Cup play.

Entering into the final two balls, New Zealand was down by two points. The country’s World Cup hopes was left to batters Grant Elliot and Daniel Vettori.

Was New Zealand, a team that was dominant throughout the tournament, going to lose in the semifinals?

Well, the pitch from Dale Steyn seemed to come and go as Grant Elliot smashed it over the boundary for six points — over the boundary on a fly is six points and bouncing into the boundary is four — resulting in New Zealand beating South Africa by four runs.

This was devastating for South Africa, who offensively played fantasticly throughout the tournament — scoring the most points in the pool round.

Afterwards, Steyn could not believe what just happened, as he laid motionless in the dirt. And in a great show of sportsmanship, Elliot stopped his celebration to help Dale up and wish him a good match. The rest of RSA shared in the disappointment as they choked back tears while walking off the field.

At the moment, New Zealand’s opponent in the World Cup final is still unknown. The other semifinal, Australia and India, is set to get underway in just over eight hours. While India has been playing magnificent ball this tournament — and was a favorite for the finals — Australia has beaten them in seven out of the last ten matchups.

Over a month into the Cricket World Cup and the teams are already past the pool round and well into the knockout phase. In fact, there are only ten days left in the tournament, with the championship happening on March 29.

But who exactly made it past the group phase: as previously mentioned, unlike the rugby or soccer World Cups, there are only two pools in cricket. And four teams from each qualify for the knockout round.

© ICC Development

Out of Pool A, the four teams in the knockout round are New Zealand — who is favored to make the finals — Australia, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Now, England had a very disappointing World Cup, which many called a disastrous showing that was thoroughly embarrassing. The only teams they were able to beat were the equally atrocious Afghanistan and Scotland.

© ICC Development

On the other side, Pool B was fairly close. Still, India dominated the group — they are also favored to make it to the finals — and the rest of the teams fought each other for seeding. Ireland nearly squeaked by, but despite beating West Indies, they were left out due to the tiebreaker. The other two teams to make it were the impressive South Africa and Pakistan: despite losing to India and Pakistan, RSA has had a great offensive showing — scoring the most points in the World Cup.

© ICC Development

Now, the knockout works by taking each seed from the opposite pool and pairing them up accordingly. Obviously the two one seeds — India and New Zealand — are placed on different sides of the bracket, but they each play the four-seed of the opposite pool. So New Zealand takes on West Indies and India plays Bangladesh. On top of this, the opposite two seed is placed on the same side of the bracket: in easier terms, the semifinals could look like A2 and B1 or B2 against A1.

And currently, the first round has already gotten underway with South Africa easily defeating Sri Lanka 134/1-133: the one after the slash means that Sri Lanka only retired one of South Africa’s batters — or RSA only needed three batters to win. On the other side, India destroyed Bangladesh 302/6-193. Again, rules in World Cup Cricket state that an inning is finished after all ten batters are retired or 50 overs. India only needed 8 batters for their 302 points and Bangladesh barely responded with 193.

As for the final two matches , Australia takes on Pakistan on March 20 at 2 pm in Adelaide, which is 11:30 pm EST tonight. And New Zealand against West Indies is on March 21 at 2 pm in Wellington, which is 9 pm EST tomorrow.

The Cricket World Cup is underway: and today, West Indies’ Chris Gayle gave the performance of a lifetime against Zimbabwe. In a 372/2-289/10 win, Chris Gayle scored an astronomical 215 runs: torching Gary Kirsten’s previous World Cup record of 188 in 1996.

This is only the fifth time 200 points was achieved in One Day International (ODI) cricket, but is obviously the first time in a World Cup setting: the other three players to achieve this milestone was Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar and Rohit Sharma — who achieved it twice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cS2AFLAD2tk

Now, let’s just observe some of the ludicrous statistics. He scored 215 on 147 pitches: that is 1.46 points per pitch. On top of this, Gayle had a strike rate of 146.26: the highest before today’s sensational play was 130.35. And lets not forget, Gayle was also the fastest in ODI history to reach 200 points: he only needed 138 balls to do so with the previous record being 140 by Virender Sehwag.

He also connected on 16 sixes — when a ball is hit beyond the boundary on a fly rewarding the team with six points — which tied AB de Villiers and Rohit Sharma’s record for most in a World Cup game.

After the match, Gayle stated, “I have never felt this kind of pressure, but in the end, I am sure I gave them something to cheer about. It was a bit slow at the start, not to mention keeping it low. I just tried to take the bull by the horns and hang out there and try and build an inning.”

Next, West Indies will face South Africa on Feb. 27.

As much as uSports has been talking about the Rugby World Cup, which will take place in London during the second of 2015, this year is also the Cricket World Cup. Last night, the tournament kicked off with the opening ceremony in Hagley Park, New Zealand — the matches are also co-hosted by Australia.

The Cricket World Cup is handled like most World Cups: teams a divided into pools, where they play a round robin. Afterwards, the best of those pools emerge to play in a knockout out tournament.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9F63f7rnmA

Here, instead of having multiple pools like soccer and rugby, there are only two: 2015’s Pool A contains Afghanistan, Australia, Bangladesh, England, New Zealand, Scotland and Sri Lanka. Pool B has India, Ireland, Pakistan, South Africa, United Arab Emirates, West Indies and Zimbabwe.Now, the four best teams from each division will emerge: with them being paired according to ranking for the quarterfinal match of the knockout round.

So what are exactly the rules of the World Cup because cricket could vary between T20, One Day and Test Cricket. Here, they use One Day rules, which as the namesake suggests usually last about a day: the game consists of an inning, and each half an inning has 50 overs. An over is when six balls are pitched to a batter: once six legal bowls are in play, a different bowler is selected as the fielders change sides. In the end, games usually end when all batters from each team have gotten up.

Matches officially get underway on Feb. 14 with Sri Lanka vs. New Zealand opening the tournament. And the World Cup will run until the end of March, with the finals happening on March 29. Stay tuned, as uSports will consistently update you about match scores and those moving on past pool play.