Former umpires say officials erred in giving 6 overthrows in WC final, ICC declines comment
London/Melbourne, Jul 15: Former international umpires Simon Taufel and K Hariharan Monday said officials standing in the World Cup final erred in awarding six runs, instead of five, to England for an overthrow, an observation that the ICC refused to comment on.
Luck smiled on England midway through the final over of their innings when a throw from New Zealand fielder Martin Guptill deflected off the bat of Stokes and ran to the boundary. England tied the match and the ensuing Super Over before winning on boundary count on Sunday.
Sri Lanka's Kumar Dharmasena and South African Marius Erasmus were the on-field umpires for the pulsating game in which England were chasing 242 in the regulation 50 overs.
"It's a clear mistake.. it's an error of judgment. They (England) should have been awarded five runs, not six," Taufel, a five-time ICC Umpire of the Year, told foxsports.com.au.
Echoing Taufel's view was former Indian umpire K Hariharan.
"Kumar Dharmasena killed the World Cup for New Zealand. It should have been five runs not six," he told PTI.
The ICC refused to make a comment with a spokesperson simply saying, "The umpires take decisions in the field of play with their interpretations of the rules and we don't comment on any decisions as a matter of policy."
Law 19.8 of the ICC rules, pertaining to 'Overthrow or wilful act of fielder', states: "If the boundary results from an overthrow or from the wilful act of a fielder, the runs scored shall be any runs for penalties awarded to either side, and the allowance for the boundary, and the runs completed by the batsmen, together with the run in progress if they had already crossed at the instant of the throw or act."
"...the umpires needed to check if at the point of throw the two batsmen had crossed each other or not. If we see that replay, when the throw came, the two batsmen had barely started the second run," Hariharan observed.
"That run can never be counted. It was duty of square leg umpire (Marius) Erasmus to consult the TV umpire and change the decision. Stokes shouldn't have been on strike next ball," he added.
Taufel, a highly-regarded ex-Australian umpire, is now a part of the MCC's laws sub-committee that makes the rules governing cricket.
The bizarre incident took place in the fourth ball of the final over at the Lord's.
TV replays showed Adil Rashid and Stokes had not yet crossed for their second run when Guptill released the ball from the deep.
However, on-field umpires Kumar Dharmasena and Marais Erasmus added six runs to England total following the incident -- four runs for the ball reaching the boundary plus two for running between the wickets by the batsmen.
Taufel also defended the officials.
"In the heat of what was going on, they thought there was a good chance the batsmen had crossed at the instant of the throw," Taufel said.
"Obviously TV replays showed otherwise. The difficulty you (umpires) have here is you've got to watch batsmen completing runs, then change focus and watch for the ball being picked up, and watch for the release (of the throw)," Taufel said.
"You also have to watch where the batsmen are at that exact moment."
He acknowledged the call "influenced the game" but added, "It's unfair on England, New Zealand and the umpires involved to say it decided the outcome".
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Tharoor slams 'underwhelming' budget, likens it to 'rearranging airbags on crashing car'
New Delhi (PTI): Describing the Budget as an "underwhelming" and a "squandered opportunity", Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Tuesday likened it to rearranging air bags on a crashing car while assuring the passengers that the chassis is sturdy and they will feel better afterwards.
Initiating the debate in Lok Sabha on the Union Budget, Tharoor quoted Mirza Ghalib's famous Urdu couplet -- 'Dil ko khush rakhne ko yeh khayaal achcha hai' -- to attack the government and said the real weakness of the budget lies in implementation as rhetoric is not matched by reality.
"This is headline management -- where promises are loud like that horn, budgets are grand, but delivery is conspicuously absent. The Budget this year has landed with a thud, not because of what it contains, but because of what it omits. Behind claims of fiscal prudence lie a more uncomfortable reality: the Indian state is shrinking not by design, but by compulsion," the Congress MP said.
Hitting out at the government for not meeting the promises it made in the agriculture sector, Tharoor said, "These announcements are like modern courtships -- promises without commitments."
"I had remarked that the 2025 Finance Bill reminded me of the garage mechanic who said, 'I couldn't fix your brakes, so I made the horn louder.' Looking at the Budget this year, I am saddened to observe that though the horn has been muted, that there hasn't been enough movement: for this Budget too appears to be a squandered opportunity, equivalent to rearranging the airbags on a crashing car, while assuring the passengers that the chassis is sturdy and they will feel better afterwards," Tharoor said.
This Budget is praised for prudence, but prudence without vision or fairness is hollow, he said.
"It ignores unemployment, rising living costs, and inequality, offering little to address the real struggles and aspirations of the aam aadmi," the Congress leader said.
The government speaks endlessly of welfare, but its spending tells a very different story as behind flashy announcements lie chronic under-utilisation and administrative failure, he claimed.
"Media reports show that of over Rs. 5 lakh crore budgeted for 53 major welfare and infrastructure schemes last year, barely 41% was spent in the first nine months of the fiscal year. Take the Jal Jeevan Mission - allocated Rs. 67,000 crore, it managed to spend an astonishingly low Rs. 31 crore in nine months. The much-touted PM Schools for Rising India scheme spent only Rs. 473 crore out of Rs. 7,500 crore.
"Most shocking of all, the Pradhan Mantri Anusuchit Jati Abhyuday Yojana, meant for the socio-economic upliftment of Scheduled Castes utilised merely Rs. 40 crore of its Rs 2,140 crore allocation," he said.
This is not governance but headline management -- where promises are loud, budgets are grand, but delivery is conspicuously absent, Tharoor said.
He said the reality of the government's tall promises and narratives of "model governance" was out in the open.
They are not policies grounded in outcomes, but carefully curated illusions, glossy schemes and utopian projections that might soothe the imagination but everyday life for the ordinary citizens of India remains unchanged, he said.
"Hope is repeatedly sold, but delivery remains perpetually deferred. Viksit Bharat by 2047 is an admirable ambition, but this Budget offers no credible pathway to reach it," Tharoor said.
He further said unemployment continues to rise, poverty hardens, jobs remain scarce and wages stagnant.
"Small businesses, already gasping for relief, are smothered under layers of compliance, while informal workers, who sustain our economy with their labour, are pushed further into invisibility and insecurity. They promise railways, yet stations crumble. They speak of flight, yet UDAN has flown away. Our pepper, once celebrated as black gold, withers under neglect," he said.
Education is curtailed precisely when it should be expanded, he said.
"One and a half lakh schools still function without electricity, yet 'Viksit Bharat' is spoken of as if the lights are already on. When vision is severed from reality, it ceases to be aspiration and becomes merely an illusion," he said.
A truly Viksit Bharat will not be built on slogans, speeches or symbolism, but on delivery that reaches the last citizen of India, Tharoor asserted.
"Turning promises into outcomes is not a favour. It is not a choice. It is our kartavya," he added.
Tharoor pointed out that government expenditure as a share of GDP has declined over the past decade, briefly rising during the pandemic before reverting close to its 2016 level, driven by stagnant revenue mobilisation.
"Tax receipts have remained flat relative to GDP, disinvestment has underperformed, and non-tax revenues increasingly rely on extraordinary transfers such as RBI dividends -- an unsustainable substitute for a stable revenue base. More troubling is the shift in the tax burden towards individuals, bearing a greater share of the tax burden than corporations, despite sharp post-pandemic profit growth," he said.
Capital expenditure is emphasised, yet weak demand, stagnant wages, high youth unemployment, compressed welfare spending, and inadequate devolution to states, all persist -- leaving India fiscally disciplined but developmentally constrained, without the revenue capacity or strategic clarity to deliver real economic security for the aam aadmi, he said, adding that this is why he calls it an "underwhelming budget".
