Sport England’s new signal system within spirit of the game, says skipper

By Mark Gleeson

© Reuters/SUMAYA HISHAM FILE PHOTO: Second International Twenty20 - South Africa v England

CAPE TOWN (Reuters) - England captain Eoin Morgan said there was nothing untoward about a new system of signals from analysts in the dressing room used to send messages to him on the field during limited overs internationals.

"It is 100 percent within the spirit of the game," he told a news conference on Thursday as England looked ahead to the start of their three-match One Day International series against South Africa at Newlands on Friday.

The system was used as England swept the three Twenty 20 internationals against South Africa with England’s analyst Nathan Lemon placing a series of large numbers or letters on clipboards, that were visible from the field, and were meant to help Morgan in his decision-making.

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England ’ s T20 specialist David Willey has lashed out on Indian players for not playing within the spirit of the game , when they repeatedly pulled out of their Willey was particularly miffed by the way fast bowler Bhuvneshwar Kumar stopped in his delivery stride during the last over of the English innings.

“There is nothing untoward about it. It’s about maximising information we are taking in and measuring it against things, like the coach’s recommendation or the data,” Morgan said.

“There’s always been constant communication, verbal or physical, from the change room to the field to help improve my decisions as captain, to try and correlate the feeling of the flow of the game and what we feel are the right decisions against the data that we’ve already researched coming into the game and, as the game progresses, how that might change.

“It’s something that we’re experimenting with during the game to see if we can improve our performance on the field.”

Morgan said not many of the signals had changed his on-field decision making during the three T20s against South Africa.

“There were three in the first game, two in the second and a couple in the third so it’s nice to know that the majority of the decision actually replicates what we feel is right.”

England will continue to use the system, he added.

“We are definitely going to continue with it and give it enough sample size to see if it improves our decision making on the field, our performance or it might tell us more about how we understand the information we are taking in during the game.”

(Editing by Toby Davis)