The Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), custodians of the Laws of Cricket, is considering reviewing the overthrow rules in light of incidents that occurred in the final match of the 2019 Cricket World Cup.
According to The Times, the MCC feels that overthrows are worth taking a look at whenever it next reviews the laws of the game which is the responsibility of the MCC Laws’ sub-committee.
On 14 July, the rule came under the spotlight when New Zealand’s Martin Guptill’s throw took a deflection off England’s Ben Stokes and went to the boundary ropes after which, umpires Kumar Dharmasena and Marais Erasmus gave England six runs – 4 overthrows and 2 runs ran by the batsmen. England needed nine runs from the last three balls before the incident and the overthrow brought the deficit down to three needed off two.
The match ended in a tie and the Super Over that was played to decide the match, also ended in a tie. However, England were declared the eventual winners on the basis of their superior tally of boundaries through the course of the match.
Had England not been awarded the 4 runs for overthrow, the match could have gone either way. But the rules bound the umpires to call it a four, despite ‘Stokes himself going to the umpires and asking them to reverse the decision’ (as per Jimmy Anderson).