Chris Woakes appeals in Manchester.Credit: Getty Images
“We were told they didn’t have old enough balls to replace. It changed the entire momentum of the game. You work so hard to get rid of that shine, and we did that.
“Once the ball was changed, it was a whole different game… You’ve got to have a set of rules where you determine how the ball is going to be changed… I really don’t know, but it can be really disadvantageous for the batters.”
A similar move during last year’s fifth Ashes Test prompted queries from Australian opener Usman Khawaja, who “hadn’t felt the ball hit my bat as hard” as when the ball was controversially swapped at England’s request.
Ricky Ponting hit out at England’s contentious ball swap late on day four at the Oval last year.Credit: Getty/Nine
Ricky Ponting was particularly vocal in his objections to the ball change, saying it was “a huge blunder that needs to be investigated”.
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Sri Lankan batting coach and former English batter Ian Bell was more diplomatic about the ball change’s impact at Manchester, pointing out that the venue’s lights were turned on amid heavy cloud cover around the same time.
“In England that can happen,” Bell said. “All you ask for is that [it] is consistent for both teams. I know we tried to change it a couple of time in the first innings, but they didn’t.
“But the seam did look pretty awful on that last ball, and unfortunately, you have to accept in these conditions a ball change can swing around.”
