“I think it’s a huge blunder that needs to be investigated” :Ricky Ponting on Ashes ball change, Usman Khawaja also felt ball hit the bat hard.

During the fifth and final Ashes Test at the Oval, a controversial incident took place involving a ball change during the fourth evening. This decision resulted in former Australian captain Ricky Ponting, who was also serving as a commentator for the series, calling for an investigation due to his belief that it favored the England bowlers. Following the match, Australian opener Usman Khawaja expressed his concerns about the ball change that occurred in the 37th over of Australia’s chase. Khawaja remarked that the replacement ball felt “very different” and had a noticeable impact, hitting the bat hard.

Ricky Ponting said, “The biggest concern I have is the big discrepancy in the condition of the ball that was chosen to replace. There’s no way in the world you can even look at those two balls there and say in any way are they comparable. If you are going to change the ball, you want to make sure that you get it right, so it is 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.”

“The conditions were better for bowling this morning. But what I saw last night, that ball there, I’ll put my hand up and say I’ve got absolutely no doubt at all that that ball would not have done anywhere near as much as what that one did this morning. 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. “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 picked one out of there that they think will be okay to use,” Ponting added.

Despite a strong start on Day Four with a score of 135 for no loss in 38 overs, Australia faced setbacks on the final day. They lost David Warner in the 42nd over and Usman Khawaja in the 44th over during their unsuccessful pursuit of 384 runs. Warner, who scored 60, and Khawaja, who scored 72, were the top scorers for Australia in the fourth innings. Marnus Labuschagne also departed in the 49th over after being caught at second slip off a delivery by Mark Wood, which swung away. In the end, England emerged victorious by 49 runs, leveling the series 2-2 as Australia was bowled out for 334.

Usman Khawaja in the post match interview said “We started off really well. The big thing was that ball. As soon as they changed that ball, the first over they changed that ball. I knew straight away this ball was very different. I went straight up to Kumar and said ‘how old is this ball you’ve given them because it feels like it’s about eight overs old.’ You could see the writing on both sides and it hit my bat so hard. I’ve opened in every single innings this Ashes series and I haven’t felt the ball hit my bat as hard as that ball felt when it hit my bat. So I said to the boys even coming into today (fifth day) to be careful, this new ball, it’s going to be tricky. It’s going to be a lot harder than that other ball.”