[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

Within the letter of the law? Probably. And there'd be a stronger moral case for doing so on the basis that Carey's throw was an attempt to gain an advantage; i.e. if you're the one who's decided the ball's still live when everyone else thinks it's dead, you can't complain too much if it backfires and costs you. But a more accurate equivalent would be if Carey had thrown the ball to a fielder to polish, and Stokes & Bairstow decided to run at that point. And I can confirm I wouldn't be a fan of that either, albeit a run is of less magnitude than a wicket.

Come to think of it, there was a Women's BBL match a few years ago where the batting team needed two off the last ball to tie, they hit it into the infield and ran a single, and when the throw came back to the keeper she pouched it and sprinted off to celebrate with her teammates... whereupon the batters suddenly decided they weren't declining to take any more runs after all, and immediately pinched a second to get the tie. Same judgement applies: dozy from the player letting their guard down, but devious from the players taking advantage of the vagueness of the laws and the assumption of fair play to benefit.