Dukes to Lead an Inquiry into Ashes Ball Change Controversy

image-lkxya435A look of old and changed ball (Source: Twitter)

Despite the Ashes 2023 coming to an end, there is no stopping the controversies. The ball-change dispute has been going on for a while now and as Dilip Jajodia, the owner of British Cricket Balls Ltd, which manufactures the Dukes ball, gave his take on it, the discourse is not stopping any sooner.

For the unversed, in what is believed to be a causation of the changed ball, Australia succumbed to a 49-run loss after being 135/0 at one stage. There was no movement to be seen up until the umpires changed the ball in the 37th over of Australia's second innings on the fourth day of the Oval Test after Usman Khawaja got hit on his helmet.

Talking to News Corp, Jajodia did not completely rule out the possibility of the ball being from an old batch of 2018 or 2019 and informed of an investigation that he will launch on this matter.

"I can't imagine they would risk putting a ball in there with a different date on it,” Jajodia told News Corp. “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."

Earlier, ex-cricketer Ricky Ponting and the top-scorer of the recent Ashes Khawaja among the whole of Australia showed their disapprobation on the changed ball.

It was argued that the changed ball was offering more movement and that Australia's collapse was a result of it.

"I walked straight up to Kumar and said straight away, 'That ball is nothing like the one we've been playing with'. I could see writing on it. It felt harder than any ball I've faced throughout this whole Ashes series to be honest. I've opened the batting against the new ball every single time and it just hit my bat so hard. I know Woody was bowling, but I've faced Woody before," Khawaja said as quoted to cricket.com.au.

"I said, 'You've gone from an old, reverse (swinging) ball to a brand-new ball'. It looked like it was about eight overs old, swinging conventionally and hitting the bat hard. So I actually asked Joel again today, 'How are we using this ball right now? It's so new."

Controversies aside, in what was an entertaining Ashes cricket-wise, Australia retained the urn on the back of a 2-2 series-draw.