New Zealand skipper Kane Williamson felt heartbroken following his team's World Cup final loss to England at Lord's on Sunday (July 14), despite twice equalling the opponent score before depressingly coming out second in the race because of having a lesser boundary count during the actual game proceedings. 

Both teams posted 241 in their allotted 50 overs before once again posting 15 runs each off the six balls they faced in the super-over bout. However, the tournament hosts prevailed in the end for putting more balls across the boundary ropes. 

It was all quite demoralising for the Black Caps but Williamson admirably smiled it off and stressed perhaps it just "wasn't meant to be".

"What did they win it on, boundaries? While the emotions are raw it's pretty hard to swallow when two teams work so hard to get to this moment in time," said Williamson after the loss. 

"We had two attempts to separate us and still couldn't – it is what it is, the rules are there at the start and they probably never thought they would have to use them. Gutted, obviously. We put in a huge amount of work to get to the final and to pretty much do all we could." 

"I have spoken a lot about uncontrollables and there were a couple today which were hard to swallow. England are deserved winners, take nothing away from them. It's one of those things," he added. 

New Zealand managed to qualify for the semis with a better net run-rate despite finishing the league phase on equal number of wins as Pakistan. The team was massive underdogs approaching the knock-outs but did handsomely defeated table-toppers India in the first semi-final before losing the final to England by just a whisker. 

Williamson, who can be mighty proud of his boys, also led them from the front with his tactics and the willow, scoring 578 runs in the 10 matches and receiving the "Player-of-the-Tournament" award from legendary Sachin Tendulkar himself. 

(Inputs from AFP)