In this scenario . Rashid on strike needing 4 runs off 2 balls . Rashid is underated and has a very good strike rate . He would have had a good heave , can hit a 6 or boundary would have at least made a single leaving Stokes to face last Ball which would have been a boundary .Very interesting with Taufel confirming that the umpires should have awarded 5 runs instead of 6... obviously the one run could have made all the difference, but imagine if Erasmus and Dharmasena had made the right call and then (correctly) told Stokes that he had to go down to the non-strikers end.
England would have been up in arms, and its an interesting debate as to whether they would have preferred to take the 5 and have Rashid on strike, or just settle for the 2 (agreeing that the ball was dead after hitting Stokes) and allow Stokes to have the strike? And would they have even been allowed to do that (decline the overthrow boundary)?
So disappointing that the umpires let us down there at that crucial juncture. Not that I had any idea about that rule, but you'd expect them to seeing as Taufel is so across it. From a cricket nerd point of view I am happy to now know exactly how it works in terms of overthrows and the definition of a wilful act by the fielder distinguishing between the initial runs and the overthrown runs. Previously I'd often wondered how an umpire would rule on someone "deliberately" (in the AFL sense) tapping the ball over the boundary to turn an all-run 5 into a 4.