“I went straight to Tom Latham and said ‘Mate, I am so sorry’: Ben Stokes

England have recently won the 50-over World Cup and are all set to face their arch-rival Australia at Edgbaston, Birmingham on August 1 in the Ashes. However, their win in the 50-over World Cup didn’t go well with many because of the process. In the final, while England were chasing a total of 241, a direct throw from Martin Guptill hit the bat of the diving Ben Stokes while he was completing his second run and ended up becoming a boundary in the final over.

Kumar Dharmasena, the on-field umpire gave six runs after consultation with Marais Erasmus and the rest of his colleagues which eventually helped England to finish that on a tie. Surprisingly the Super Over too ended on a tie where England won on the back of more number of boundaries than the Kiwis.

Earlier, during an interview, James Anderson had said that Stokes had asked the umpires to take those runs off.

“I think, talking to Michael Vaughan who saw him after the game, Ben Stokes actually went to the umpires and said, ‘Can you take that four runs off. We don’t want it’,” Anderson had said to the BBC’s Tailenders podcast.

However, Ben Stokes, himself has cleared the air regarding the incident where he said that he didn’t say something like that to the umpire.

“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,” he told in the latest episode of BBC podcast. “I went straight to Tom Latham and said ‘Mate, I am so sorry’, looked over to Kane (Williamson) and said ‘I’m sorry’,” he added.

On the other hand, Dharmasena also had faced criticisms for this but ICC has backed him and his decision. However, former India captain Anil Kumble-led Cricket Committee will also discuss the issues in their next meeting, related to the World Cup final which included the controversial boundary count-back rule.