Heather Knight Column: Incredible World Cup final will leave England’s players smiling for days

For its sheer craziness and incredible drama, that match will go down as the best final I've ever seen.

It was a mental game, that climax was so dramatic and you have to draw breath to take in what's actually happened. It's hard to put into words.

When Ben Stokes and Jos Buttler were batting it looked like England were on top and they'd worked hard to put together a partnership that kept us in the game.

We were under immense pressure and they knew those two were probably going to have to do the bulk of the work.

Losing Buttler when he looked like he would get the team over the line, it just seemed that it would slip away and you felt it wasn't to be.

But they got a little bit of the rub of the green and played some excellent cricket at the end.

You have to feel for New Zealand, no team deserved to lose that. When you lose a close game you pick the bones over everything that happens, however small, that could have been done differently.

But Stokesy was brilliant, not just in the way he played but his fitness levels as well, the way he kept going and pushed those twos and threes and then came out and did it again in the Super Over.

You could see how much he wanted to get the team over the line – at times it looked like there was redemption for him from the disappointment of Kolkata and the ICC World T20 final, and I think he felt it was his opportunity to take the game and turn things around for him personally.

I'm really chuffed for him, he's desperate to do well for England and he's a real character and heartbeat of that team.

The journey the whole team has been on and taken the public on over these past four years has been really special, it's been exciting to watch through the highs and lows and we're really chuffed for them.

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They've really captured everyone – people who were into cricket before and those who weren't.

I had quite a few friends watching the final and texting me asking me about the rules – these were people who had never really seen the game, who were flooding me with questions about what was happening.

These people were absolutely loving it and trying to get their head around the game as quickly as they could.

A lot of credit has to go to those who made it available on terrestrial television, you could see from afar just how many people the game captured and that could only be good for our sport.

You hope it can be a moment like the 2005 Ashes for England cricket where everyone is talking about it and completely absorbed by what's happening.

It was the perfect final for that, all around the world people were just captured by what was going on.

Hopefully this day could be a landmark for cricket in this country.

Winning a World Cup is something you don't forget – and it's important that the boys enjoy the moment and the magnitude of what they've achieved.

If the England players are anything like me, they'll wake up the next morning and won't be able to stop smiling for the next couple of days.

It's an enormous achievement and it's about realising that – all through the next day the moment was replayed and replayed and you couldn't get away from it.

They'll live on the euphoria of the day for a long time to come.

It's a surreal feeling, I found it very strange and really inspirational. You hear the stories of the people who were there, those who weren't, where they watched it and how it's inspired them and their kids.

There were a few ex-England players who were trying to get their girls to play cricket for years and it took until they saw us winning the 2017 World Cup for them to get on board.

After watching us, Paul Collingwood's kids were playing for the first time and it had taken him years.

It's little stories that you hear in the weeks and months after the event that really make the difference.

They're a nice little reminder of what you've done and Eoin Morgan and the team have plenty of that to come after their extraordinary achievement.

Heather Knight captained England to the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup at Lord’s in 2017

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