The critical moment arrived during England’s chase in the last over when Ben Stokes’ bat deflected for an overthrow and sped to the boundary. Because the hitters had not crossed for the second run, England should have only been awarded five runs by on-field umpires Marais Erasmus and Kumar Dharmasena. Instead, they gave England six runs.
The match between England and New Zealand in the 2019 Cricket World Cup final will go down in cricket history forever. After the game was deadlocked after 50 overs by each team, a Super Over was used to decide the winner of the World Cup for the first time. But the drama didn’t end there—a single over tie-breaker would determine the award. However, it was impossible to ignore certain umpiring mistakes that helped England win the match.
It took until 2019 for the nation that popularised the game to win its first-ever 50-over World Cup. However, serious umpiring errors that gave England the chance to win by the slimmest of margins at Lord’s and resulted in a tie in the Super Over tempered the joy surrounding the home team’s victory. This caused a mixture of sadness and what-ifs for the New Zealand cricket team and its supporters.
Our grave mistake was: Marais Erasmus
“Did you see we made a massive error?” was the comment Erasmus made when he opened his door at the same moment as he opened his hotel room door on his way to breakfast the following morning. Erasmus said that the umpires were simply confused at the moment. Erasmus said this in a Daily Telegraph interview.
That’s how I learned about it. However, we were just saying “six,” you know, chatting to each other on the field, not realising that they hadn’t crossed over and hadn’t been picked up. He continued, “That’s it.
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Although Ben Stokes expressed regret to Kane Williamson and the team following the incident, the hosts ended up benefiting from the error as Stokes went on to play a vital inning and lead his team home with a game-winning blow.
“Playing against the good guys from New Zealand is always a fun experience. For the rest of my life, I shall apologise to Kane. Stokes stated at the time, “It was meant to be for us; it was written in the stars.”
Although the error garnered the most attention, Erasmus stated that his greatest regret was dismissing Ross Taylor LBW when the ball would have missed the stumps, according to replays. That choice might have cost the Black Caps valuable runs because he is one of the best batters in New Zealand.
Although they had burned their review, it was simply too high. The former umpire added, “That was my only mistake in the entire seven weeks, and afterward, I was very unhappy because it would have been an utter flip had I gone the entire World Cup without making an error, and that affected the game a bit because he was one of their top players.
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