England captain Morgan defends use of signals from team balcony

England one-day captain Eoin Morgan said on Thursday that he would continue to make use of signals from the team balcony.

Television coverage during the third Twenty20 international against South Africa at Newlands in Cape Town on Tuesday captured images of numbers and letters being displayed by video analyst Nathan Leamon.

“There’s been no real signals,” said Morgan.

“There has always been constant communication, verbal or physical, from the change room to us the field to help improve my decisions as captain and Jos Buttler’s decisions as vice-captain,” said Morgan.

He said the England team did its research before a game and any signals were intended to show how the data might have changed during the match.

“It’s something we’ve used a lot pre-game and are now experimenting with in the game to see if we can improve our performance on the field.”

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Morgan revealed that signals had been used in all three T20 matches.

“There weren’t many decisions that varied from mine. I think there were three in the first game, two in the second and a couple in the third,” said Morgan ahead of a three-match one-day series against South Africa, starting at Newlands on Friday.

He said he believed the tactical innovation was “100 percent within the spirit of the game”.

It was previously reported that the England camp had cleared their plan to use signals with the match officials before the first match.

“We’re definitely going to continue with it to give it enough sample size to see whether it improves our decision-making on the field,” said Morgan.

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