{"id":320305,"date":"2023-07-31T12:04:32","date_gmt":"2023-07-31T12:04:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=320305"},"modified":"2023-07-31T13:59:12","modified_gmt":"2023-07-31T13:59:12","slug":"ashes-controversy-as-disgraceful-decision-blasted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=320305","title":{"rendered":"Ashes controversy as 'disgraceful' decision blasted"},"content":{"rendered":"

The decision to change balls in the 37th over of Australia<\/a>'s second innings in the fifth Ashes<\/a> Test has come under the microscope, with one expert calling it "disgraceful".<\/p>\n

Opening batter Usman Khawaja<\/a> was hit in the helmet off the bowling of Mark Wood on day four, with the ball judged to be out of shape after the incident.<\/p>\n

Umpires Joel Wilson and Kumar Dharmasena then opted to change the ball, which was notably shinier \ufeffthan the old ball.<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Legendary career ends as Buddy calls it quits<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Campbell rips American 'sore losers' for churlish act<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Ashes miracle in reach as Warner eyes career first<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Throughout the final overs of day four and the start of day five, the ball noticeably swung more with Australia losing three quick wickets through David Warner, Usman Khawaja and Marnus Labuschagne. \ufeff<\/p>\n

Former Australian Test cricketer Callum Ferguson was strong in his criticism of the decision.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

"This ball is considerably newer, I think it's actually disgraceful that they've allowed a ball this new to be brought into the game at the stage that they did, it's made it really difficult," he said on Nine's coverage.<\/p>\n

Aussie legend Ian Healy also noticed a major difference.<\/p>\n

"Very difficult, it's swinging and seaming and right-handers are struggling with it and so too left-handers," he said.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/anewts91\/status\/1685969093546094594?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw<\/a>https:\/\/twitter.com\/copes9\/status\/1685966664658239488?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw<\/a><\/p>\n

After the first drinks break on day five, Ferguson produced a damning statistic while doubling down on the umpires' call.<\/p>\n

"There's a lot of movement on hand for them to extract with this new ball – 3\/49 off 15 overs since they've taken that new ball, before that 0\/126 off 36 overs," he said.<\/p>\n

"Barely a ball going past the bat, I find it absolutely staggering that two professional umpires can make a decision like this."\ufeff<\/p>\n

Every ball of the Ashes will be live, free and exclusive on<\/strong> 9Now<\/strong><\/a>, and if you miss any of the action you can find full highlights and exclusive replays after every day's play<\/strong> here<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Former Australian Test captain\ufeff Mark Taylor agreed the ball change had an impact but said there were other factors at play.<\/p>\n

"I think the other thing that happened yesterday apart from that ball change, which has been spoken at length quite a bit, was that the rain came last night," he said.<\/p>\n

\"Marnus<\/p>\n

"We didn't get to see how this ball would've reacted yesterday when there was a bit of movement from the England bowlers. Australia scored fairly comfortably in the 38 overs they faced yesterday but only the last two were with this ball, so we don't know if it's atmospheric conditions or whether it's this ball.<\/p>\n

"It may well be a combination of both. \ufeffToday, as Mike Atherton said (before the start of play), is a good day to bowl."<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/strong><\/em> clicking here<\/strong><\/em><\/a>!\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The decision to change balls in the 37th over of Australia's second innings in the fifth Ashes Test has come under the microscope, with one […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":320310,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320305"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=320305"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320305\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":320313,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320305\/revisions\/320313"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/320310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=320305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=320305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=320305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}