Do Away With Confusing Umpire’s Call, Suggests Virat Kohli

Pune: Team India captain Virat Kohli said on Monday the controversial ‘umpire’s call’ rule in Decision Review System (DRS) is creating a lot of confusion and that leg-before wicket (LBW) dismissals should be based only on whether the ball is hitting the stumps.

If an LBW appeal is turned down and the fielding team opts for a DRS referral, the rule is that at least 50 per cent of the ball should be hitting at least one of the three stumps for the third umpire to overturn the field umpire’s call and rule the batsman out.

“I played for a long time when there was no DRS… If the umpire made a decision, whether the batsman liked it or not, it stayed like that. Vice-versa the umpire gave it not out and it was out, it stayed like that, whether it was marginal or not,” Kohli said on Monday, eve of the ODI series opener against England.

“According to me, umpire’s call right now is creating a lot of confusion. When you get bowled as a batsman, you don’t expect the ball to hit more than 50 per cent into the stumps to consider yourself bowled.

“So from basic cricket common-sense, I don’t think that there should be any debate on that. If the ball is clipping the stumps, that should be out whether you like it or not, you lose the review,” Kohli suggested.

Kohli felt that controversial umpiring calls should not affect results, especially in major tournaments where the stakes are very high.

“There’s a lot at stake in the future with the big tournaments, and you don’t want some grey area factors in the game, which leaves you with no clarity to be the defining factors of those big tournaments,” said Kohli.

The other day, Kohli was also critical of the ‘soft signal’ system by on-field umpires, when they are not fully sure whether a catch has been taken legally and asks the TV umpire to check replays.