"I don't regret my decision in the World Cup final," says ICC elite panel umpire Kumar Dharmasena

What's the story?

ICC Elite panel umpire Kumar Dharmasena, who came under fire for his questionable decisions during the ICC Cricket World Cup final has come out and said that he doesn't regret his calls.

A throw from Martin Guptill deflected off Ben Stokes' bat and ran away to the fence at a crucial point of time and after consulting with his partner Marais Erasmus, Dharmasena awarded England six runs, a decision which came under severe criticism.

In case you didn't know...

On July 14th, England and New Zealand played out a thrilling final at the Lord's stadium. England eventually went on to win the World Cup by the barest of margins due to the boundary count rule after the two teams were tied after the super over.

However, the questionable decision came during the regulation match when England required nine runs off three balls. Ben Stokes stroked a full toss from Trent Boult to Martin Guptill, who was stationed at mid-wicket and took off for a double.

In a bid to run Stokes out, Guptill threw the ball at the striker's end but the ball took a deflection off the southpaw's bat and rolled away to the boundary. As a result, England were awarded six runs off the delivery and that eventually helped them to tie the match.

The heart of the matter

After the match came to end, a lot of discussions began as to why those deflected four runs shouldn't have been awarded to England. However, the main talking point was the fact that England should have actually received only five runs instead of six.

"It's easy for people to comment after seeing TV replays," Dharmasena was quoted saying, as he added, "I agree that there was a judgmental error when I see it on TV replays now. But we did not have the luxury of TV replays at the ground and I will never regret the decision I made. Besides, the ICC praised me for the decision I made at that time."

Even world-renowned former five-time 'ICC Umpire of the Year' winner Simon Taufel alluded to the fact that it was a judgement error on the part of the two on-field umpires to award six runs to England.

However, Kumar Dharmasena came out and said that he will never regret that decision, while also adding, "There is no provision in the law to refer this to the third umpire as no dismissal was involved."

"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."

"One must understand that there were too many things on our plate," he said. "We had to watch the batsmen complete the first run, the ball being fielded, how it was handled by the fielder and whether the batsmen completed the second run."

He also shed light on the fact that they believed that Stokes completed the second run as he said "In this case, we were all happy that the batsmen had completed the second run because the ball ricocheted off Stokes's bat at the time of him completing the second run".

"So, we assumed that they had crossed each other at the time of fielder releasing the ball. These are things that happen in a cricket field," he said. "For instance, an umpire can call a wide or a no-ball wrongly and just because the TV replays shows otherwise, we cannot go back and reverse the match. This is one such incident," he signed off.

What's next?

This was a surprising statement, to say the least, and one will have to wait and see what the ICC does to improve the level of umpiring. The 2019 World Cup saw a lot of decisions being overturned by the Decision Review System (DRS) and that will be a major cause of concern for cricket's governing body.