‘Did you see we made a massive error’: Marais Erasmus recalls blunder in final that cost New Zealand 2019 WC

2019 World Cup final still remains probably the best one-day international ever played. A World Cup final getting tied, going into the super over, which also was tied and the winner eventually getting decided on the boundary count, it was as bizarre and dramatic as any tournament final could and eventually, it was New Zealand, who got a raw deal at the end of it all. Now let alone the boundary rule, if not for the on-field umpires’ blunder, New Zealand could have actually won the World Cup in the original match itself, as per the rules.

On the fourth delivery of the final over of the innings, Ben Stokes hit a Trent Boult full toss to deep mid-wicket where Martin Guptill was alert and agile to quickly pick up and throw towards the striker’s end. However, the ball hit Ben Stokes’ bat, who dived his way into the crease, only to see the ball sprint off towards the boundary for an overthrow. The commentator Nasser Hussain too was quick to conclude that England will be awarded six runs and the umpire Kumar Dharmasena too followed the rules and gave it a six.

The equation came down to 3 off 2 from 9 off 6 but instead, it should have been 4 off 2 since the second run wasn’t completed when the ball hit Stokes’ bat. It should have been just five runs but it’s all in the past and New Zealand will be ruing the umpiring blunder. Now all these years later, the other on-field umpire Marais Erasmus has admitted that both he and Dharmasena made a blunder.

“The next morning I opened my hotel room door on my way to breakfast and Kumar opened his door at the same time and he said, ‘did you see we made a massive error?’ That’s when I got to know about it. But in the moment on the field, we just said six, you know, communicated to each other, ‘six, six, it’s six’ not realising that they haven’t crossed, it wasn’t picked up. That’s it,” Erasmus told The Telegraph UK.

However, Erasmus was more disappointed about adjudging Ross Taylor out wrongly mentioning that the ball was probably going over but the Kiwis didn’t have a review as if not for that, he would have had a spotless World Cup. “It was just too high but they had burnt their review. That was my only error in the whole seven weeks and afterwards I was so disappointed because it would have been an absolute flip had I got through the whole World Cup not making an error and that obviously impacted the game a bit because he was one of their top players,” Erasmus added.