Dukes To Launch Investigation Over Fifth Ashes Test Ball-Swap Drama: Report

Cricket ball manufacturer Dukes has said it will launch an investigation into the ball change which occurred during Australia's second innings in the fifth Ashes Test at The Oval to be investigated, following which the visitors lost the match by 49 runs to England. After Mark Wood hit Usman Khawaja on the helmet with a bouncer on the first delivery of the 37th over on day five’s play, umpires Joel Wilson and Kumar Dharmasena changed the ball, citing that it had gone out of shape. But the replacement ball looked more newer than the previous ball, and completely changed the course of the match as Australia were bowled out for 334 in a chase of 384.

Now, as per a report in Code Sports Australia, whispers coming out of England camp have suggested the replacement ball gifted to them was in fact a five-years’ old version of the Dukes’ ball and not one from the more docile batch produced for 2023.

“I can’t imagine they would risk putting a ball in there with a different date on it, Frankly the match referee should be on top of it. We do bang that number in quite hard, so even if the gold comes off the ball is imprinted. It wouldn’t be easy to get rid of it. I’m not saying it’s impossible (it was a 2018 or 2019 ball), but it’s not likely.”

“ … I’m going to investigate myself, because it affects me … my name is at stake so it’s important they don’t misallege something wrong with the ball,” Dukes owner Dilip Jajodia was quoted as saying in the report.

As ball-tracking data during the broadcast suggested the ball had more significant movement post ball change on day five at The Oval than day four, former Australia captain Ricky Ponting was left fuming on-air over the ball change.

"The biggest concern I have is the big discrepancy in the condition of the ball that was chosen to replace the one (that had gone out of shape). There's no way in the world you can even look at those two balls there and say in any way are they comparable."

"At the end of the day, if you are going to change the ball, you want to make sure that you get it right, so (you make it) as close as you possibly can to the one that you're changing it from."

"Now if you have a look in that box, there weren't too many older-condition balls in there. There were some older ones that were picked up, the umpires looked at that and threw them back,"

"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."

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Asked about the same, an ICC spokesperson was quoted as saying in the report, “The ICC does not comment on the decisions taken by umpires in matches. 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.”