"Did you see we made a massive error" - Marais Erasmus recalls conversation with Kumar Dharmasena after 2019 World Cup final
Legendary umpire Marais Erasmus recalled his conversation regarding a costly error with fellow on-field umpire Kumar Dharmasena on the day after the 2019 World Cup final between England and New Zealand.
The thrilling finale saw England triumph in an ODI World Cup for the first time after the game ended in a tie and a Super Over was used to determine the winner. However, in the 50-over contest, a moment of controversy, when an outfield throw from Martin Guptill struck Ben Stokes' bat and deflected to the boundary, saw England benefit massively.
The umpires awarded England six runs (the two which the batters ran + four for the boundary) that reduced the equation from 9 off 3 to 3 off 2. However, as per the ICC regulations, only five runs should have been given instead of six as the batters did not cross during the run at the instance of the throw from Guptill.
In an interview with Telegraph Cricket, Erasmus recalled the fateful evening and his conversation with Dharmasena on the following morning.
"The next morning (after the final) 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," said Erasmus.
However, Erasmus was more disappointed with his LBW decision to send Ross Taylor in the first innings of the same game when the ball was missing the leg stump.
"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," admitted Erasmus.
Taylor was one of New Zealand's in-form batters and his dismissal for 15 stemmed the run flow as the side finished on 241/8 in 50 overs.
Meanwhile, Erasmus recently retired as umpire from international cricket following the second Australia-New Zealand Test.
Marais Erasmus recalls the aftermath of controversial Jonny Bairstow stumping in Lord's Test of Ashes 2023
Marais Erasmus recalled the aftermath of the infamous Jonny Bairstow stumping on Day 5 in the Lord's Test of the 2023 Ashes series.
While Erasmus was the TV umpire on this occasion, Bairstow meandered out of his crease without informing the Aussie wicketkeeper Alex Carey, who threw the ball at the stumps to catch the batter outside his crease.
The England wicket-keeper batter was subsequently given out after the Australians upheld their appeal, resulting in an outrage between the side through the rest of the series.
"Shortly afterwards I walked up to the dining room and then Jonny walked in and it was very frosty. I realised maybe this is not a good place for me to be so I left. Subsequently I heard that Jonny apparently said ‘are you guys happy with that?’ and David Warner said yes, so I can just imagine it was quite messy in there," said Erasmus.
The dismissal also proved costly as England fell short by 43 runs to go down 0-2 in the best-of-five affair.
However, England used the moment as motivation as they bounced back to finish the series on level terms at 2-2.