Constantly changing the balls during Lord’s Test called ‘Ridiculous’! Ravi Shastri calls out the umpires
With the increasing concerns over the Dukes ball quality, another ball change incident happened- where the replacement balls could not even cross the rings.
Former cricketer Ian Ward had his views on the changing of balls, which caused an unpredictable delay in the first session of Day 3 of the third Test between India and England at Lord's. The main highlight of the match was the Dukes ball yet again.
The process of picking the replacement started right after the drinks break of the first session, to which Ian Ward fumed at the umpire's decision to not change the ball when it was drinks break and doing it during the match- which caused a delay of more than 7 minutes.
"Well here we go again, another ball change. Now, I have to say, this is frankly ridiculous because if they've decided to change the ball, why was that not decided at the start of the drinks break? So this procedure could have taken place or started couple or three minutes ago. We waited for the entirety of the drinks break; they should be playing again now, and now the umpires have decided to change the ball and have gotta go through this procedure," Ward said on Sky Sports.
Former Indian cricketing legend Ravi Shastri was in the commentary panel with Ian during this incident and expressed his agreeance on his comments. "I couldn't agree more. It's common sense what you're saying, it's basic. It's hard to explain, really hard to explain. The case is, did they forget to check the ball? What's quite amazing is that they checked five balls and all five of them didn't go through the ring. So, why they have a box in the first place?" he said.