Ashes 2023: Ricky Ponting calls for ball change in Australia’s chase to be 'investigated'

Former Australia captain Ricky Ponting has called for the ball change which occurred during Australias second innings in the ongoing fifth Ashes Test at The Oval to be investigated a move which he termed as a lsquohuge blunderrsquoAfter Mark Wood hit Usman Khawaja on the helmet with a bouncer on the first delivery of the 37th over umpires Joel Wilson and Kumar Dharmasena changed the ball citing that it had gone out of shapeBut the replacement ball looked newer than the previous ball as Khawaja David Warner and Marnus Labuschagne were dismissed in quick succession in Australiarsquos chase of 384The 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 Theres no way in the world you can even look at those two balls there and say in any way they are comparableAt 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 youre changing it fromNow if you have a look in that box there werent too many oldercondition balls in there There were some older ones that were picked up the umpires looked at that and threw them back said Ponting on Sky SportsAlso Read Cricket quite the gentlemanrsquos gameAs balltracking data during the broadcast suggested the ball had more significant movement post the change on Day Five than on Day Four Ponting was left fuming over the change which he feels the umpires didnrsquot carry out finelyI just cannot fathom how two international umpires that have done it 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 blase picked one out of there that they think will be okay to useThe conditions were perfect for bowling this morning lets say that The conditions were better for bowling this morning But what I saw last night that ball there Ill put my hand up and say Ive got absolutely no doubt at all that that ball would not have done anywhere near as much as what that one did this morningDouble the amount of movement this morning from yesterday afternoon seam movement and swing I think its a huge blunder that needs to be investigated Ponting addedVeteran India wicketkeeperbatter Dinesh Karthik too agreed with Pontingrsquos views especially when the pictures of balls used were compared ldquoI mean if you look at those pictures the picture paints 1000 words they say and I guess this is a great example of thatrdquoldquoYou know when you look at how itrsquos behaved itrsquos one thing but also the conditions have helped but itrsquos been very hard to bat on here this morning and some highquality bowling from Woakes But just look at that I mean itrsquos chalk and cheeserdquoFormer Australia cricketer Callum Ferguson was left unhappy over the ball change made by the umpires ldquoI think it is actually disgraceful they have allowed a ball this new into the game at the stage they did It made it very difficultrdquoldquoThose two balls are so so different Thatrsquos almost a new ball They might as well unwrap a new one I find it staggering they ended up with that ballrdquoGlenn Maxwell who is part of Australias limitedovers setup tweeted shortly after the first wicket fall Beware the 2nd new ashesThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever