England is facing growing criticism for using a controversial new signaling system during a recent T20I game against South Africa and former captain Michael Vaughan described it as “nonsense.”
Earlier, the vice-captain and wicketkeeper-batsman Jos Buttler had revealed that England was trailing the new live signal system in South Africa.
The England and Wales Cricket Board had said the system was “a live informational resource that the captain may choose to use or ignore as he wishes. They are not commands or instructions and all decision-making takes place on the field”.
During the final T20I, England Team analyst Nathan Leamon was spotted by TV cameras placing cards with messages such as ‘4E’ and ‘2C’ as coded signals from the dressing-room in order to provide information to captain Eoin Morgan during the game.
However, the strategy was cleared in advance by match referee Andy Pycroft but has sparked controversy with Vaughan criticized England’s controversial experiment of passing on information to captain Morgan saying he “liked things done privately” rather than exposed to others through signals.
However, Morgan has fired back has defended the strategy by saying it was within the spirit of the game while claiming the method is key in taking the emotion out of on-field calls.
After writing on Twitter that the “signals sent from an analyst on a balcony to the captain on the pitch !!!! The world has officially gone nuts!”, the commentator has now claimed there was “absolutely no chance” he would have ever employed this system during his time.
Vaughan said on BBC Radio: “Eoin Morgan is the greatest white-ball captain we [England] have had by some distance, Jos Buttler's probably the greatest white-ball cricketer we've ever had behind the stumps. I just don't understand why you'd want to give the opposition any sort of information from the balcony.”
The former skipper was also surprised how the ICC allowed such a strategy since the practice could be a problem with cricket's anti-corruption approach.
Vaughan further explained, “We've been hounded with anti-corruption and match-fixing problems within cricket for many, many years. I've no idea how the ICC can clear an analyst giving information to the team from the sideline.
I know it's been mentioned that you can pass a piece of paper [to the players] and that's fine because it's private. A 12th man can run on a bit of information and that's private, but by deliberately putting signals on a balcony [that's different].”
He signed off, “I think the ICC have to look at this and go now, 'Wait a minute, why would we allow some kind of signaling to go on from the balcony that could potentially — I'm just saying potentially — could be picked up by someone in that ground that could be used in some kind of corruption?'”
