Third Umpire Trolled With Brutal Memes as Soft Signal Rule Causes Outrage During Fourth T20I

Soft Signal rule has rattled the entire Indian Twitterverse and we can understand why. Thursday’s T20I contest between India and England at the Narendra Modi stadium turned out to be a thrilling encounter for both teams as the hosts held their nerves and levelled the series 2-2 with an 8-run victory. Suryakumar Yadav starred with the bat while the Indian bowlers ensured the Englishmen didn’t reach the victory line. The match, with all the drama and nail-biting moments, also witnessed controversial decisions that favoured the visiting side. Suryakumar Yadav and Washington Sundar were given out caught in the deep in controversial circumstances.

Suryakumar Yadav was out caught by Dawid Malan at fine leg, although replays showed the ball touching the ground. However, third umpire Virender Sharma upheld the on-field soft signal of out. Experts questioned how the on-field umpire could have seen an event that happened so far away and called for the rule to be looked into.

Later in the game, Washington was caught at deep third man by Adil Rashid, while there were doubts on whether Rashid was touching the rope. Once again, the on-field call stayed.

Disappointed by the soft signal calls by the third umpire, desi cricket fans flooded microblogging site Twitter with memes taking several digs at the match official. Similarly, cricket experts came down hard at the dubious decisions.

Meanwhile, much like the fans and cricket pundits, Kohli expressed displeasure at the soft signal calls.

“These are decisions that 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. You want these ironed out and keep the game really simple and linear. It isn’t ideal in high-pressure games and have a lot of clarity on the field,” Kohli said at the post-match presentation.