England and New Zealand played one of the most dramatic one-day cricket matches even. The World Cup 2019 final was won by England but some of the decision raised controversies.

The Story

Both teams outplayed each other and played some outstanding game of cricket in the World Cup 2019 final. Once the scores were tied, the game went into the Super Over. But even Super Over was tied and the winner was decided based on the number of boundaries.

But there was a moment when Ben Stokes unintentionally averted an overthrown ball to the boundary. The umpire gave six runs to England for the same. That very six in the last over turned out to one of the major deciding factors of the game. But Simon Taufel, one of the flawless international umpires of all time said that it was a mistake from the umpires to award England with six runs. Taufel was also a member of the committee that presides over cricket’s rulebook.

England needed nine runs off the last three balls and the game was in New Zealand’s court. Stokes hit the ball towards deep mid-wicket and Martin Guptill grabbed it and threw it to the striker’s end. He attempted a direct hit to run the batsman out. By then Stokes was coming back for the second run and dived to save himself. The ball was deflected to the boundary with his bat and the umpire Kumar Dharmasena awarded England six runs.

The Fact

According to law 19.8, “If the boundary results from an overthrow or from the wilful act of a fielder, the runs scored shall be any runs for penalties awarded to either side, and the allowance for the boundary, and the runs completed by the batsmen, together with the run in progress if they had already crossed at the instant of the throw or act.”

Stokes and Adil Rashid hadn’t crossed each other when the overthrow happened. So technically England should have been awarded five runs. Taufel echoed the same issue and mentioned, “It’s a clear mistake … it’s an error of judgment. They (England) should have been awarded five runs, not six. In the heat of what was going on, they thought there was a good chance the batsmen had crossed at the instant of the throw. Obviously, TV replays showed otherwise.”