The on-field umpire’s ‘soft signal’ was a topic of discussions again on Tuesday (March 23) during the second New Zealand versus Bangladesh ODI in Christchurch.
The on-field umpire gave Bangladesh opening batsman Tamim Iqbal an ‘out’ soft signal following an appeal from New Zealand pacer Kyle Jamieson, who seemed to have gotten hold of a return catch.
The incident took place in the 15th over of the Bangladeshi innings after the Kiwis decided to bowl first upon winning the toss.
Tamim Iqbal gets a lifeline in controversial circumstances
Tamim played an on-drive to a full-pitched delivery from Jamieson but because of the lack of timing on it, the ball floated in the air for a bit and didn’t roll along the ground. In the nick of time, Jamieson, a bowler 6 feet and eight inches tall, dived onto his front and grabbed hold of the ball. The on-field umpire believed Jamieson has taken a perfectly clean catch and gave the soft signal ‘out’ before sending it upstairs to the TV umpire for a thorough investigation.
Third umpire Chris Gaffaney went through the whole review process and found conclusive evidence to give the decision in batsman’s favour as when Jamieson went down in momentum, the ball in his right hand had actually touched the turf. To make the catch legal, Jamieson had to have some part of his hand underneath the ball.
During the review, Gaffaney could be heard saying,
I have got the ball on the ground and the player is not fully in control.
Subsequently, ‘Not Out’ was flashed on the giant screen at the stadium, which must’ve been a cause of huge relief for Iqbal.
Iqbal was batting on 34 at the time of the whole catch controversy. The visiting captain went on to make 78 runs in his innings and helped Bangladesh reach a fighting total of 271/6 from their allotted 50 overs. Mohammad Mithun (73), as well as Soumya Sarkar (32) and Mushfiqur Rahim (34), also contributed nicely to the team’s cause.
In the preceding first ODI in Dunedin, Iqbal had managed only 13 runs before being dismissed by Trent Boult as Bangladesh capitulated to a score of 131 all out and suffered an eight-wicket defeat.
