ICC to address the soft signal issue; to stick with ‘umpire’s call’

The International Cricket Council (ICC) addressed the issue of soft signal and whether there is merit in sticking to it for long-distance outfield catches in a virtual meeting on Thursday (March 25). 

The ‘soft signal’ became a topic of discussions and debates once again recently when India batsman Suryakumar Yadav was declared out despite the close reviews leaving doubt over the legality of the take from England fieldsman Dawid Malan. 

According to a Cricbuzz report, BCCI secretary Jay Shah pushed the issue up for a debate at ICC’s board meeting. It is learnt that Shah found support from other member countries on the matter, who believe that the protocol and the review process in play for such catches need to be revisited. 

After the 4th T20I on March 18, where the Suryakumar incident took place, India captain Virat Kohli spoke about the ‘soft signal’ issue and suggested the need for an ‘I don’t know’ gesture from the on-field umpire when he isn’t sure of the cleanness of the grab from a distance. 

“I don’t know why there can’t be an ‘I don’t know’ call with the umpires as well. These decisions can change the course of the game, especially in these big games. We were on the receiving side today, and tomorrow it could be some other team,” Kohli had said at the post-match presentation. 

Kohli’s words were vindicated by the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) recently when the World Cricket Committee of the game’s law-making body recommended that the on-field umpire should say ‘unsighted’ instead of ‘out’ or ‘not out’ for outfield catches which he isn’t sure of. 

It is understood that ICC directors are in agreement on the contentious matter and believe that a change on it should be made before the final of the World Test Championship (WTC) in June. 

Further, Cricbuzz reported, “the matter of soft signal may not be referred to the (ICC) Cricket Committee”, adding, “that it will now go to ICC’s Chief Executives’ Committee and then make its way into the board meeting”.

The process could take long but BCCI is reportedly confident of the change being adopted before the WTC final. 

‘Umpire’s call’ to stay: ICC

Meanwhile, the ICC is likely to retain the ‘umpire’s call’, another widely debated topic in the cricketing circuit, part of the DRS review process. 

There have been suggestions from prominent names in world cricket to abolish the ‘umpire’s call’ and give an ‘out’ LBW decision on every delivery for which the path projection shows the ball to be hitting the pads in line and then the stumps. 

Kohli has been vocal on this front for quite some time now. The Indian captain, even though in admission of it being one of cricket’s “grey areas”, seeks absolute clarity and consistency in the decision-making. 

The ICC Cricket Committee, headed by Anil Kumble, however, does believe there is a need for ‘umpire’s call’ to be there as the DRS review process, especially the technology it currently uses, isn’t 100% correct in predicting the path of the ball following the impact. The committee also includes the likes of Mahela Jayawardena, Rahul Dravid, Tim May, Mickey Arthur, Richard Illingworth, Ranjan Madugalle and Shaun Pollock. 

The matter of ‘umpire’s call’ was referred to ICC’s Chief Executives Committee (CEC) and has been forwarded to the ICC board for approval. The governing body is expected to come up with a statement on it post the board meeting scheduled for April 1. 

An MCC spokesman talked to Cricbuzz about the body’s recommendations and said: “On DRS, the MCC World Cricket committee felt that the TV umpire should look at replays from a neutral perspective, rather than trying to see if there is evidence to overturn the on-field decision. The committee felt that the soft-signal system worked well for catches within the 30-yard fielding circle, but that catches near the boundary often left the umpires unsighted.”

“It was proposed that, for such catches, the on-field umpires could give an ‘unsighted’ instruction to the TV umpire, rather than the more explicit soft-signal of Out or Not out.”

Author’s take

Soft signal: Batting on 57 at the time, Suryakumar Yadav struck England’s left-arm seamer Sam Curran into the outfield, only for fieldsman Dawid Malan to get down low before jumping in joy as he claimed a catch.

As the existing procedure goes, umpire KN Ananthapadmanabhan sent the matter upstairs and gave a soft signal of ‘out’. Later on review, despite multiple repays of Malan’s take from different zoomed-in angles, third umpire Virender Sharma remained unconvinced about the legality of the take. 

But because the doubts lingered and there was no conclusive evidence shown by the technology to overturn the on-field umpire’s soft signal, the signal was stuck by and Suryakumar was adjudged out. 

It’s been a standard procedure followed for long by the ICC, which can be changed and the onus could be left to make a final decision by the third umpire alone. But those who suggest so tend to forget that the technology in use will remain the same and will leave the third umpire just as much confused. 

For long-distance outfield catches, cricket doesn’t yet give the officials a ‘three-dimensional’ image on the replays. And so if it is Ananthapadmanabhan’s soft signal in debate, it could well have been Virender Sharma’s decision also. 

Until the technology is 100% correct and throws up conclusive evidence each time it is employed, it would make sense for the ICC to stick by the existing process and use of the ‘soft signal’. 

Umpire’s call: Just as contentious as ‘soft signal’, the ‘umpire’s call’ doesn’t have too many friends either. Virat Kohli, the Indian captain, didn’t hold back his displeasure about it recently in a presser and asked for more consistency in the decisions involving the ‘umpire’s call’ in DRS. 

“According to me, the umpire’s call right now is creating a lot of confusion,” he said. “When you get bowled as a batsman, you don’t expect the ball to hit more than 50% into the stumps to consider yourself bowled. So, from basic cricket common sense, I don’t think that there should be any debate on that.”

The existing DRS process takes into account a 50% margin. At least half the ball must be hitting the stumps on the path projection – both in ‘impact’ and after the impact – for the LBW call to be considered conclusive. 

That is because the ICC admits that the technology isn’t 100% full-proof even at this stage of its development to give a clear picture of the ball’s predicted path. Thus, for decisions that the technology leaves the officials in a bit of doubt, the ‘umpire’s call’ is stuck by.

So many are cricket’s variables – different surfaces behave differently of unique pitch spots in terms of bounce, turn, seam deviations – that the technology might never be 100% correct in predicting the path of the ball following an impact on the batsman’s pads. 

That is why it makes sense to go by the vision of an experienced official standing up as umpire when the technology leaves some doubt or debate. 

The ‘umpire’s call’ isn’t a problem in the DRS review process. It is, in fact, an aid in making decisions where the technology doesn’t give an absolutely correct picture and there is doubt involved.