Jimmy Neesham reacts during the Cricket World Cup final. Photo / Photosport
Jimmy Neesham reacts during the Cricket World Cup final. Photo / Photosport
Black Cap Jimmy Neesham still gets constantly reminded about the heartbreaking defeat at the Cricket World Cup final.
It's been over a month since England triumphed over New Zealand in the World Cup final thanks to the smallest of margins – the now infamous boundary tiebreaker.
For Neesham, one ofthe Black Caps' stars during the tied Super Over, it has taken quite a while to get over the loss.
"People are definitely comfortable talking about it," Neesham told Radio Sport Breakfast. "That was never a problem. People were comfortable talking about it about four hours after it finished. It took me probably a month to sort of get over it and be able to joke about it.
"It's one of those things, you sort of wake up the next morning and you look at the ceiling and you sort of go 'I can't believe that actually happened' and then you do that the next morning and then you do that for about four weeks and eventually you get a bit sick of waking up like that. You sort of go off and move on."
After last month's final, Neesham took to Twitter to jokingly warn off children from sport because of the emotional agony it can cause.
"Kids, don't take up sport. Take up baking or something. Die at 60 really fat and happy," he wrote on Twitter.
Jimmy Neesham reacts during the Cricket World Cup final. Photo / Photosport
The 28-year-old all-rounder is well-known for his hilarious social media presence and acerbic wit, but after the final he also expressed just how devastating the defeat at Lord's was.
"That hurts," he wrote in another tweet. "Hopefully there's a day or two over the next decade where I don't think about that last half hour. Congratulations @ECB_cricket , well deserved."
While he's had some time off cricket to reflect and heal after the World Cup, some of his teammates have been right back into action with the test side in Sri Lanka – something Neesham doesn't envy.
"Obviously with other cricket going on as well it was a benefit to me. I don't really know how the guys over in Sri Lanka prepared for a test series during that period because I certainly wasn't really in the mood to be hitting balls or bowling or that sorts of stuff they would've had to be doing. But there's plenty of water under the bridge now and we'll look to move on."
But when it comes to jokes about boundaries and tiebreakers, Neesham expects them to keep coming for years, even decades into the future.
"I'll be playing a game of table tennis in 2050 and we'll get to deuce and the person in the next table will probably [joke about boundaries]."
