After his team’s eight-run victory against England in the fourth T20I, India skipper Virat Kohli on Thursday (March 18) vented out his frustration over on-field umpire giving soft signal as "out" even when the player is unsure whether he has taken the catch or not.
During India's innings, two umpiring calls were a bit 50-50 and it could have gone either way but the TV umpire ruled it in favour of England as the soft signal was out.
In the 14th over, Suryakumar Yadav was sent back to the pavilion by Sam Curran. The right-hander attempted a ramp shot but Dawid Malan ended up taking the catch. Replays showed that the ball might have touched the ground, however, as the soft signal was out, the third umpire stayed with the on-field call citing "lack of conclusive evidence".
The soft signal came to haunt India in the last over of the innings as well. Washington Sundar played an uppercut and he was caught by Adil Rashid at the boundary. Even though replays indicated that Rashid's foot touched the boundary rope, third umpire Virender Sharma stayed with the on-field call.
"There was an instance in the Test series when Jinx (Ajinkya Rahane) caught the ball and wasn't sure. When there's a half-and-half effort, the soft signal becomes more important. I don't know why there can't an "I don't know" call for the umpires. You want these things ironed out to keep the game linear. But we want clarity on the field," Kohli said at the post-match presentation ceremony.
The Indian captain also did not field for the last few overs of the match. Providing an update, Kohli said: "I ran for the ball and aggravated my upper quad a little bit. It's nothing serious. I should be fine for the game in a day and a half. Better than sprinting for five or six overs, because we have an important game coming up."
Coming to the match, the hosts posted 185/8 in 20 overs on the back of Suryakumar’s maiden half-century (57 off 31 balls) in the shortest format. Shreyas Iyer (37 off 18 balls) and Rishabh Pant (30 off 23 balls) also made notable contributions with the bat.
In reply, England managed 177/8 in their stipulated quota of 20 overs. Shardul Thakur (3-42), Hardik Pandya (2-16), Rahul Chahar (2-35) and Bhuvneshwar Kumar (1-30) were among the wickets for India.
Talking about the match, Kohli said: "A tough game against a top side, and the dew factor was massive. A few instances in the middle were strange, but 180-plus was what we were looking at, and a special mention to SKY (Suryakumar Yadav). The guys in our squad are confident heading into the IPL. Shardul (Thakur) turned it around but our powerplay kept them in check."
"It's not easy to walk in at three and start like that, we were stunned by that start [from SKY], he stamped his authority, big credit to these youngsters, coming in and grabbing the opportunities, you set your standards high, and Hardik (Pandya) bowling his four overs in the way that he did augurs very well," he added.
The series-decider will also be played at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on Saturday (March 20).
(With ANI inputs)
