6 traditional cricket rules ICC should look to change

4. Decisions based on soft signals

Soft signals have often become the nemesis of many players in the past. And so, a lot of times these decisions have translated into burning controversies, as we continue to debate the existence of soft signals by the on-field umpire.

A soft signal is a decision (out/not out) taken by the on-field umpire based on intuition before referring it to the third umpire. This comes into play during a catch appeal where there isn’t conclusive evidence of whether the ball has carried and if the fingers are underneath the ball. The third umpire is bound to go with the soft signal if there is a lack of irrefutable evidence to show otherwise.

While many decisions taken by the third umpires have been controversial in the past, the soft signal controversy came to the limelight when Suryakumar Yadav had to walk back in the face of a controversial catch from Dawid Malan. While some angles showed the fingers to be under the ball, the majority showed the ball to be hitting the ground. Nonetheless, the onfield soft signal of out prevailed. A recent example of this includes Virat Kohli’s dismissal in the first Test vs South Africa.

It will do no good to put the fielding team in the spot of bad spirit as the catcher doesn’t often have the eyes on the ball which goes for a catch. Likewise, once the ball is outside the inner circle, the on-field umpires can not judge a catch taken at the boundary through their naked eye. Following the footsteps of IPL which removed the use of soft signal, the ICC should also rethink this rule with immediate effect. An alternative could be to consider it a dead ball, indicating that it be re-bowled, in case of inconclusive evidence of a catch.