Did Stokes ask umpires not to add four overthrows to England's score?

Ben Stokes running between the wickets.

According to Ben Stokes' England teammate James Anderson, Stokes asked the umpires not to add the four runs that were added to England's score off overthrows which in the end proved decisive in the World Cup 2019 final.

A throw from Black Caps fielder Martin Guptill deflected off Stokes' bat while he was diving to reach his crease to complete the second run and the ball ran off to the boundary in the dying stages of the England run chase.

Having taken into account the two completed runs and the resultant boundary from the overthrow, Stokes was awarded six runs, though some experts have opined that he should only have got five, which would have left England a run short of New Zealand's total of 241 for 8.

If Ben Stokes actually appealed to the umpires not to add those runs and the on-field umpires would have paid heed, the match would never have gone into a Super Over, with New Zealand winning the match by 4 runs.

Anderson, who will be Stokes' Test team-mate for the upcoming Ashes series against Australia, said that the England all-rounder, who apologised the moment the incident happened by raising his hands, had appealed to the umpires to overturn their decision.

"The etiquette in cricket is if the ball is thrown at the stumps and it hits you and goes into a gap in the field you don't run. But if it goes to the boundary, in the rules it's four and you can't do anything about it," Anderson told the BBC's Tailenders podcast.

"I think, talking to Michael Vaughan who saw him (Stokes) after the game, Ben Stokes actually went to the umpires and said, 'Can you take that four runs off. We don't want it'. But it's in the rules and that's the way it is," added Anderson.

"It's been talked about for a while among the players, potentially that being a dead ball if it does hit the batsman and veer off somewhere."

Ben Stokes, who was born in New Zealand, said that he might have to be sorry to his Kiwi friends for the rest of his life for the 'fluke' that turned decisive in England's World Cup 2019 triumph.

With inputs from PTI

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