Irfan Pathan compares soft signal rule with Sholay's Thakur after Suryakumar Yadav's controversial dismissal

More than Suryakumar Yadav’s performance in his maiden international innings, it is his dismissal that has caught everyone’s attention. After failing to get a chance to bat on his debut, Suryakumar finally batted during the fourth T20I against England and made the most of it. He scored a blazing fifty to lay the foundation for India’s series-levelling 8-run win.

Suryakumar blasted 57 runs off 31 deliveries with the help of 6 fours and three sixes. His knock helped India post their highest score in the series so far – 185 for 8. In reply, England came up with a good fight but eventually finished on 177 for 8. But Suryakumar’s match-winning knock has been overshadowed by the way his knock came to an end.

His knock ended when he was given out caught by Dawid Malan at deep square leg. On the second ball of the 14th over of India’s innings, the right-handed batsman pulled Sam Curran into the deep where Malan initially appeared to have taken a low catch. The catch, however, was not very clean and thus on-field umpire KN Ananthapadmanabhan referred the third umpire while giving a soft signal of ‘out’.

Third umpire Virender Sharma adjudged it out despite remaining unconvinced about whether it was a clean catch. The official watched the replays of the catch from various angles for nearly four minutes and repeatedly mentioned the evidence as ‘inconclusive’. But despite the lack of conclusive evidence, he upheld the on-field umpire’s decision.

Irfan Pathan’s cheeky dig at ‘soft signal’ rule:

Former India all-rounder Irfan Pathan has taken a cheeky dig at the controversial ‘soft signal’ rule after Suryakumar Yadav’s dismissal. In the wake of the dismissal, several experts and fans have urged the ICC to do away with the rule. India skipper Virat Kohli has also expressed his reservation over the much-talked about rule.

Pathan took to Twitter to say that relying on umpires for such decisions was like depending on ‘Thakur’ from the famous Bollywood movie ‘Sholay’. The character of Thakur had no hands, and so relying on him for anything absolutely made no sense.

“Giving Soft signal despite having technology is like Having Thakur but Sholay wala… #softsignal,” Irfan Pathan tweeted.

Giving Soft signal despite having technology is like Having Thakur but Sholay wala… #softsignal

— Irfan Pathan (@IrfanPathan) March 19, 2021