Why there can’t be ‘I don’t Know’ call by the umpire: Virat Kohli argues

Indian skipper Virat Kohli has argued that the on-field umpires should have the option of not making a soft signal during a controversial decision. Kohli's opinion comes after Suryakumar Yadav's controversial dismissal in his debut innings when he was caught at deep square leg by Dawid Malan off the bowling of Sam Curran. Yadav, batting on 57, pulled Curran to the deep square where Malan claimed a clean catch and umpire KN Ananthapadmanabhan gave a soft signal of 'out' for the third umpire to cross-check.

The third umpire Virender Sharma, even after going through multiple reviews, described the evidence as 'inconclusive', and even though there were a lot of doubts that it was a clean catch, the umpire couldn’t overturn his decision as the evidence remained inconclusive. 

Giving the example of how he as a captain has always appealed on catches that he is not sure of, Indian skipper Virat Kohli said that the umpire should just confirm it from the third umpire instead of giving a soft signal as out or not out. 

“If it's a half-and-half effort and the fielder's in doubt, I don't think the umpire from square leg would see that clearly and, you know, make a conclusive call. So the soft signal becomes that much more important and it's a tricky one,” he told Star Sports.  

Reasoning that other teams could bear the brunt of the soft signal in future as well and comparing the soft signal to the Umpire’s call during LBW, Kohli said, “I don't know why there cannot be a sort of 'I don't know' call for the umpire as well. Why does it have to be a conclusive one? Because then that [dictates] the whole decision completely. Similar to the argument we have about umpire's call as well."

The 32-year-old further said that instead of complicating things with soft signals and the Umpires’ call, the game should be kept simple and linear for the viewers and also to avoid wrong decision making in high-pressure games. 

“So you want these things ironed out as much as possible, keep this game simple, keep it linear, have one set of rules which are not grey areas which we don't understand sometimes, and sometimes we do. So it's not ideal, especially in a high-pressure game that has a lot of things riding on it, a lot at stake. It's important to have a lot of clarity on the field," he added.