Never asked umpire to cancel four off overthrow in World Cup final: Stokes
London: With his "hand on heart", England's World Cup hero Ben Stokes says he never asked the umpires to cancel the four runs off an overthrow during the epic final against New Zealand.
One of the biggest turning points of the July 14 final was the overthrow on the fourth ball of the final over bowled by Trent Boult.
In a bid to complete his second run, a diving Stokes, his bat outstretched, accidentally deflected the ball coming from the deep mid-wicket region to the third man boundary.
"I saw all of that. I was thinking to myself, did I say that? But hand on heart, I did not go up to the umpires and say something like that to the umpires," Stokes said in the latest episode of BBC podcast 'Tuffers and Vaughan'.
Stokes, who remained not out on 84 at the end of regulation play before swinging his bat again in the Super Over, said he apologised to New Zealand skipper Kane Williamson and wicketkeeper Tom Latham as the ball rolled past the boundary.
"I went straight to Tom Latham and said 'Mate, I am so sorry', looked over to Kane (Williamson) and said 'I'm sorry'," he said.
Stokes' England teammate James Anderson had earlier claimed that the all-rounder had asked for the four overthrow runs to be cancelled.
Stokes said he has seen the 50th over of the England inning multiple times since the July 14 evening at Lord's and said it was "nerve-wracking to watch" despite the fact that his team is already a World Cup winner.
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Iran suggests it's open to US talks, White House official says, Trump is 'eventually' willing
Washington (AP): A senior White House official said Sunday that Iran's “new potential leadership” has suggested it is open to talks with the United States after American and Israeli forces launched a major attack against Tehran, killing the country's supreme leader and other high-ranking officials.
The White House official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal administration deliberations, said President Donald Trump says he is “eventually” willing to talk, but for now the military operation “continues unabated.” The official did not say who the potential new Iranian leaders are or how they made their alleged willingness to talk known.
Trump told The Atlantic, in an interview Sunday, that he planned to speak with Iran's new leadership.
“They want to talk, and I have agreed to talk, so I will be talking to them,” he said, declining comment on the timing.
The potential future diplomatic opening comes as new details are emerging about the detailed planning that went into the US-Israeli strikes and some of the targets that were hit in Iran.
US Central Command said that B-2 stealth bombers struck Iran's ballistic missile facilities with 2,000-pound bombs. That mirrors the approach that the military took in June, when Trump agreed to deploy B-2 bombers to attack three key Iranian nuclear sites.
Trump claimed in his State of the Union speech last week that Iran had been building ballistic missiles that could reach the US homeland — a justification he repeated again Saturday as he announced that the bombardment of Iran was underway.
Iran has not acknowledged that it is building or seeking to build intercontinental ballistic missiles. The US Defence Intelligence Agency, however, said in an unclassified report last year that Iran could develop a militarily viable intercontinental ballistic missile by 2035 “should Tehran decide to pursue the capability.”
Before the attacks, the CIA had for months tracked the movements of senior Iranian leaders, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, according to a person familiar with the operation.
The intelligence was shared with Israeli officials, and the timing of the strikes was adjusted in part because of that information about the Iranian leaders' location, according to the person, who was not authorised to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The intelligence sharing between US and Israel reflects the preparation that went into the strikes, which continued for a second day Sunday after Khamenei's killing threw the future of the Islamic Republic into uncertainty and raised the risk of escalating regional conflict.
The New York Times earlier reported about the CIA's efforts before the Israeli-US strikes.
Sen. Tom Cotton, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, declined to discuss details Sunday when asked on CBS' “Face the Nation” about intelligence sharing with Israel. But he said tracking the movements of the supreme leader and the heads of other adversarial nations “is obviously one of the highest priorities of our intelligence community.”
“Clearly, this operation is driven by intelligence collected by Israel and the United States that has once again proven that our nations have capabilities that no other nation on Earth has,” said Cotton, R-Ark.
The US regularly shares intelligence with allies including Israel. Those partnerships, and the accuracy of the intelligence they yield, is often critical not only to the success of a military operation but also to the public's support for it.
Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the senior Democrat on the committee, told The Associated Press that historically, “our working relationship with the Mossad and Israel is really strong.” Mossad is the Israeli spy agency.
Warner said he has serious concerns about the justification for the strikes, Trump's long-term plans for the conflict and the risks that US service members will face. The military announced Sunday that three American troops had been killed and five were seriously wounded in the Iran operation.
“No tears will be shed over their leadership being eliminated but always the question is: OK, what next?” Warner said.
