ICC Breaks Silence On The Ball Change Controversy In Ashes 2023-TGN

An ICC official has responded to the former Australia captain Ricky Ponting‘s demand of investigating the matter around the ball change controversy from Australia’s second in the 5th Ashes 2023 Test at The Oval.

England won the last Ashes Test by 49 runs, and leveled the series 2-2, denying Australia the chance to win their first Ashes series in England since 2001. However, the Australian openers had given their side a great start with a partnership of 140 runs in their chase of 384 and looked on course to gun down the target.

But suddenly things changed dramatically as the ball began swinging and seaming hoops, making life difficult for the batters as Australia slipped from 140/0 to 169/3.

This was because of the change of ball just a couple of overs before Day 4 ended. This has created a big controversy because the replacement ball was shinier, newer, and much harder than the one that had been replaced after 36 overs. It very much resembled a new ball and that helped the England seamers greatly to make a comeback.

Ricky Ponting, like many Australians, was shocked and furious at the umpires picking a very new-ish ball as a replacement ball after the ball had had wear and tear for 36 overs. Ricky Ponting called this a big “bluder” on the umpires’ part and demanded this be “investigated’ by the ICC.

Ponting said: “I just cannot fathom how two international umpires that have done that a lot of times before can get that so wrong. That is a huge moment in this game, potentially a huge moment in the Test match, and something I think actually has to be investigated: whether there was the right condition of balls in the box, or the umpires have just, blasé, picked one out of there that they think will be okay to use.”

“Double the amount of movement this morning from yesterday afternoon, seam movement and swing. I think it’s a huge blunder that needs to be investigated.”

ICC replies to Ricky Ponting’s demand of investigating the ball change matter

The ICC official has said in strict terms that the ICC will not make any comment on the decision made by the umpires on the field.,

“The ICC does not comment on the decisions taken by umpires in matches,” a spokesman said.

Explaining further, the official said, “We can, however, confirm that all balls are preselected before the start of every match and when the situation calls for it, the match officials choose the ball that is closest to the condition of the ball that is being replaced.”

Aussie opener Usman Khawaja was quite vocal about this issue and confronted umpire Kumar Dharamsena and Joel Wilson regarding this.

“I walked straight up to Kumar and said straightaway, ‘That ball looks nothing like the one we were playing with. I can see writing on it’,” Khawaja told cricket.com.au.

“It felt harder than any ball I‘ve faced in this Ashes series – and I’ve opened the batting against the new ball every single time. I said, ‘I don’t know what’s going on – you’ve gone from an old, reverse (swinging) ball to a brand-new ball’.”

“I asked Joel again today, ‘How are we using this ball right now? It’s so new’. And he said, ‘There was nothing else in the box’,” Khawaja recalled.