The cricketing world stopped with bated breath, anchored to their places in a game littered with superstition. Optimism was rationed out in the suspenseful wait for a hero.
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Of those, it could be argued there were 22. This was the greatest game of one-day cricket ever played, and one neither England deserved to win nor New Zealand deserved to lose.
A farcical tiebreaker ruling made the difference when nothing else could, leaving England captain Eoin Morgan to both lift the World Cup trophy and consign New Zealand to yet another silver medal.
Boundaries were somehow decided upon as the most fitting way to decide the winner of international cricket's showpiece event. Not wickets, not another Super Over, but a number - 27-16 in favour of the champions - which would otherwise fade into insignificance.
Runs, as the rules have it, would not do. Both sides finished on 241, New Zealand first finishing with two wickets in hand, before England lost two wickets in consecutive balls to exhaust their reserves in their hunt for that decisive final run.
Ben Stokes, fresh off his match-saving 84 not out in regulation time, finished on eight to go with Jos Buttler's seven in the Super Over - the first of its kind in a World Cup final.
Jimmy Neesham hammered 13 in the Black Caps' ultimately ill-fated chase, with Martin Guptill caught short of his ground for one with a wide added for good measure.
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One-hundred overs could not separate the two, nor could two more. But in the end that matters not.
"I still can't quite believe it," Morgan said.
"I can't believe we have got over the line. It has been an extraordinary day ... like the most incredible game of cricket with nothing between the sides.
"Sport sometimes is very, very fine margins. I think it was the finest of margins today and it could have gone either way, but I'm thankful it went ours."
It was fitting the venue for such a spectacle was Lord's, affectionately known as the home of cricket.
But the man upstairs was not smiling on New Zealand. No, for England spinner Adil Rashid assures Morgan "we had Allah with us".
For those inclined, it may explain those unimaginable moments which would set us up for the epic climax that still left us wanting.
Like Ross Taylor being dismissed leg before wicket without a review to play with after Guptill's howler. Like Trent Boult stepping on the boundary rope before hurling the ball in play to complete a team catch, thus giving Stokes six runs in the penultimate over when the hosts were seemingly shot.
Like the ball that ricocheted off Stokes' bat and into the boundary rope to nab four overthrows when England needed nine runs from the final three balls. Like the umpires making a critical error in awarding six instead of five on that same ball.
Like Martin Guptill being caught metres short of his crease in the hasty pursuit of a second run on the final ball of the Super Over, one which would have given New Zealand the 16th run and a maiden World Cup.
Instead, as Jos Buttler's gloves crashed into the stumps at the Pavilion End to send the English into raptures, those metres stood between New Zealand and the trophy every cricketing nation so desperately craves.
"I'm pretty lost for words," Stokes said.
"All the hard words that's gone in over these four years, this is where we aspired to be. To do it with such a game, I don't think there will be another like this in the history of cricket."
Brendon McCullum's aggressive outfit of 2015 could not finish the job against a rampant Australia, nor could Kane Williamson's modern day equivalent which more closely resembles a sophisticated engine.
The heartbreak of losing a second consecutive World Cup final will again hover over the land of the long white cloud en route to India in 2023, a tournament which would seem decades away as the Black Caps mourn another missed opportunity.
"It certainly wasn't for one extra run, there are so many parts in that match that could have gone either way," Williamson said.
"Congratulations to England, they had a fantastic campaign and deserve their victory. We have showed heart and fight to get to this stage and a tie in the final - it wasn't meant to be.
"The guys are shattered. It's devastating. Tough to swallow."
For today, tomorrow and for the next four years, England are world champions.
Those who saw it will never forget it. Those who missed it will wish they had not. This was the greatest game ever played.
Caden Helmers
Caden Helmers is a sports journalist for The Canberra Times.
Caden Helmers is a sports journalist for The Canberra Times.
