After a week, Sri Lankan umpire Kumar Dharmasena finally realized his wrong decision during the Cricket World Cup 2019 final. In the last over of the England vs New Zealand final at Lord’s, he awarded six runs to England in an overthrow.
English player Ben Stokes was running for the second run when the ball was thrown to the wicketkeeper which deflected from the bat of the batsman and ran to the boundary for four.
This decision angered cricket fraternity and a lot of cricket gurus expressed their concerns over it.
Former umpire Simon Taufel also commented on this controversial decision saying that England should have been given five runs, not six as the batsmen had not crossed for the second run when the ball was thrown.
Clarifying his decision to Sunday Times he mentioned that he did not have television replays to double-check the run.
Later on, during TV replay he realized his wrong judgement, “I agree that there was an error of judgement when I see it on TV replays now but as I did not have the luxury of television replay, I do not regret my decision.”
“So, I did consult the leg umpire through the communication system which is heard by all other umpires and the match referee. And, while they cannot check TV replays, they all confirmed that the batsmen have completed the run. This is when I made my decision,” Dharmasena told the newspaper.
For the first time in the history of cricket, a World Cup final entered super over and ended in a tie in it too. Awarding England with the trophy on the basis of boundaries also faced controversy.
Add Comment