Expectations were sky-high, the pressure immense. But whereas last year there were still doubts about their partnership, this weekend Luke Littler and Luke Humphries proved why they are currently the two best darts players in the world. With an impressive victory in the final of the World Cup of Darts, they secured England a record-breaking sixth world title in the nations’ tournament.
Afterwards, pride was the overriding emotion for both players. Not just because of the title, but above all because of the way it was achieved. Under immense pressure, following a nerve-wracking semi-final against Wales and a dominant final, Littler and Humphries showed that, as a team, they form an almost unbeatable combination at the World Cup. "It feels amazing. Like Luke has said and I've said plenty of times, we've played together, we've won as a team, and we dug deep," said Littler after the final to DartsNews.com among others. "Afternoon sessions are always the hardest, whether we're playing together or against each other. Wales played their part, but as soon as we got into the evening session, that's when we both played our best. That second session was unbelievable from both of us."
Averaging around 111 in that session, Humphries said that it wasn't shock that they averaged what they did, it was more thinking they could've done more and that he was proud of the fact that they proved the doubters wrong who said they couldn't do it as a team. "To be honest, I don't think we played in a way that we're not capable of. We just played the standard we know we can play at. It was about getting through that first game yesterday because there was so much pressure on us. Last year we lost our first game and people were saying we couldn't play together, couldn't win together and weren't a team. It was hard because we are a team – we just had one bad game. We managed to get through a tough match yesterday and another tough game against Wales. Me and Luke keep saying we hate afternoon sessions. We get up late! We knew if we got through Wales, we'd come alive in the evening. We both do. I'm really proud of how we played against Scotland and Wales. Michael van Gerwen was in great form, hitting huge scores and putting us under pressure, but we didn't relent. We kept going, hit some big finishes and Luke produced some massive scores. When we put it all together, we're a difficult team to beat."
But while there is this touch of proving people wrong, Humphries said it wasn't at the forefront and that it was more proving to themselves what they knew about what they could achieve. "Not really. We're here for ourselves, we're here as a team, we're here to make our families proud and represent England. It's not about proving people wrong. It's about proving ourselves right. We know how good we are and how good we can be as a team. A lot of people doubted us, but we wanted to prove to ourselves that we could do what we believed we could do. Tonight we showed that with some great scoring and finishing. This was a special win. We really wanted this one."
Given the football World Cup is now on, Humphries was asked if they could do the double and he joked that he didn't think they would be the inspiration for it to happen. "I don't think they'll be watching us thinking we're the inspiration, to be fair! But if it gives them five per cent, happy days. They've got a great chance. England aren't favourites for the football World Cup, whereas we were favourites here and we did our job. It would be great to see England do the double. We've done our part and we'd love to see them do theirs. It'll be tough because there are so many great nations involved, but we'll be backing them all the way."
