England win record fifth World Cup title with victory over Austria in final

Top seeds England won a record fifth World Cup title with a 10-6 victory over Austria in the final in Frankfurt.

World champion Luke Humphries hit four 100+ finishes as he and Michael Smith gave England a first win since Phil Taylor and Adrian Lewis won the pairs event for the fourth time in 2016.

The title favourites raced into a 5-1 lead over 2021 runners-up Rowby-John Rodriguez and Mensur Suljovic, Humphries taking out 151 in the sixth leg and 121 in the next before Austria hit back to reduce their deficit to 6-4.

A 180 from Humphries then set up Smith, who had struggled with his doubles early on, to take out double 15 before finishes of 130 and 112 from Humphries took England to the brink of victory.

Suljovic took out 98 to keep the match alive but Smith sealed the win on double eight in the next leg.

“I felt the biggest buzz I’ve had since the Worlds,” Humphries told Sky Sports. “We really wanted this, we really believed we could win it.

“You’ve got a cheat code, the world number one and number three against the field, it’s quite tough for everyone else but after that first game we played and we clicked.”

Smith was full of praise for team-mate Humphries, adding: “How good was this man in the final? He hit everything.

“My [double] tops was non-existent and every single shot I left him, bang, bang, bang…. thank you so much mate, you’ve just got me the gold medal.”

England had earlier beaten Northern Ireland 8-4 in the quarter-finals and Scotland by the same score in the last four, while Austria edged past Croatia 8-7 in the quarter-finals before an 8-3 win over Belgium in the semis.