Now we know for sure. And perhaps on some level we always suspected it, from the moment a 16-year-old kid arrived at these championships on a wave of froth and hype and good tidings and started doing whatever he wanted. Everyone who has ever seen Luke Littler throw a dart, from Phil Taylor to his hapless beaten opponents at junior level, will have told you that this was the next giant of the sport. But some time in the future. Not right now. Surely not now.
But at half past nine on the second evening of 2024, the future spectacularly and violently morphed into the present. On Wednesday evening, Littler will play Luke Humphries or Scott Williams in the final of the Professional Darts Corporation world championship, and it feels inevitable, and it feels like something from an entirely different reality. Rob Cross, the former world champion, was his strongest opponent by far, the first top-10 player he had faced all tournament, the first man to really push Littler to his outer limits. And in the end he was destroyed like all the others, the score 6-2 in sets, Cross leaving the arena with nothing but a decent cheque and a funny story to tell the grandchildren.
Cross did not play badly. In fact, he played brilliantly: a stunning start, an average of 103, 42 per cent on his doubles. But he simply ran into a player not just better than him but visibly, embarrassingly better than him. Littler averaged 106 and took out 47 per cent of his doubles, but really numbers only tell the barest story here. It was the way a teenager toyed and teased one of the world’s greatest players, going for a single-16 on 36, going for a 180 on 182, throwing with the menace and relish of a kid who just knows, down to his very bones, that he can throw whatever he wants.
And for all his novelty and inexperience, Littler was a justifiable favourite here: the highest tournament average of any of the four semi-finalists, the highest percentages of legs won, the highest percentage of 180s per leg. His knack of converting single-20s into 134s simultaneously lifts him and demoralises opponents. Then, of course, there was the crowd: a crowd already convinced it was watching greatness in the making, who roared their little child gladiator to the stage as if he were already one of their own. Littler did not blink in the lights. He did not look abashed or embarrassed. He pumped up the noise with his arms, accepted a hug from the Warrington Wolves mascot, sauntered on stage like a guy with nothing to lose.
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A few seconds later the arena filled with boos as his opponent prepared his entrance. Nobody can really know what Littler is feeling right now, but Cross probably has a better idea than most. Six years ago he arrived at these championships as a talented unknown and left as the most unlikely champion in the history of the sport. And of course nobody would remotely describe the intervening years – a World Matchplay, a couple of European Championships, 11 major finals, a residency in the world’s top 10 – as a failure.
But gradually, a player who had once declared his cast-iron intention to dominate the sport became part of the supporting cast. He has been omitted from the Premier League for the last two years. He has never been universally loved by crowds, who find his quirks on stage – particularly the long pauses to reset himself before double attempts – a little grating. In a sport driven by characters and rhythm, Cross has precious little flow and precious little chill. Put it this way: if he didn’t exist, nobody would feel the need to invent him. Even in defeat, this has been an encouraging few weeks for him.
And yet, he really was on it at the start. Throughout this tournament he has been plagued by slow starts, culminating in the remarkable comeback from 4-0 down in the quarter-final against Chris Dobey. This time, however, he started with poise, panache and a spray of power scoring. The first dart was relentlessly inaccurate in a way it never was against Dobey. It took him until the sixth leg of the match to register his first trebleless visit, by which time Littler had already notched up six, and was behind in sets for the first time in the tournament.
In retrospect, the second set was the key. Cross had a dart to go 2-0 up in sets on his own throw, Littler was beginning to leak the odd dart into the 5-bed and was complaining about a draught across the stage. But perhaps the biggest difference between these two is that while Cross is the sort of quirky player for whom everything needs to go right, Littler is a player who can throw himself back into the zone within a couple of darts. He nervelessly took out 74 on his favoured double-10 to level the match, and was never behind after that.
Was this the most seismic night in the history of darts? The 2007 final between Taylor and Raymond van Barneveld, the rise of Fallon Sherrock, the greatest leg of all time between Michael Smith and Michael van Gerwen: all will have their claim. But never in this sport, or perhaps any sport, has a talent announced itself as resoundingly or as thrillingly as this. This is Littler’s world now, and somehow everyone else in it feels ornamental. – Guardian
