London. In the 2019 World Cup, the England team created history and won the ICC ODI World Cup title for the first time. Some decisions were taken in this match which were surrounded in controversies. Marais Erasmus, who recently retired from the elite panel of umpires of the International Cricket Council (ICC), has admitted to making a ‘big’ mistake in the 2019 ODI World Cup final. England won the final in controversial fashion at the prestigious Lord’s ground.
After the match remained tied even after the Super Over, England won their first ODI World Cup title by defeating New Zealand on the basis of the now abolished boundary counting rule. However, if on-field umpires Erasmus and Kumar Dharmasena had not given six runs to England for overthrow in the 50th over, the game could have ended in the stipulated time. At that time the host team needed nine runs from three balls. It was later realized that England should have been given only five runs because the batsmen did not cross each other while taking the second run until the overthrow.
“The next morning (after the final) I opened the door of my hotel room on my way to have breakfast and Kumar opened his door at the same time and he said, ‘Did you see that?’ Have we made a big mistake?’ That’s when I came to know about it. But at that moment on the field, as you know, we just said to each other, ‘Six, six, that’s six runs’ without realizing that they had not crossed each other.”
Erasmus played the role of on-field umpire in 127 Tests, 192 ODIs and 61 T20s. The 60-year-old umpire admitted another mistake in the final played five years ago when he declared Ross Taylor out LBW on the bowling of Mark Wood. This former South African umpire said, “The ball was hit very high but he had finished his review.” That was my only mistake in the whole seven weeks and after that I was very disappointed because if I had not made any mistakes in the whole World Cup, it would have been great. It obviously affected the game a bit because he was one of their top players.
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Tags: England vs New Zealand, world cup 2019
FIRST PUBLISHED: April 2, 2024, 19:56 IST