The third Test between England and India faced the ball drama, where both Jasprit Bumrah and Joe Root opened up their views as well. While Bumrah claimed a fifer, Root smashed a century as well.

In the press conferences, Joe Root said, “I personally think that if you want to keep getting the ball changed then each team gets three challenges every 80 overs and that’s it, if you want to get it changed. But the rings have to be the right size, not too big. That would be a nice way of compromising and saying it’s not all on the manufacturer. Sometimes these things happen but you can’t just keep asking and wasting time and slowing the game down at the same time.”

“I don’t know the ins and outs of how they make it [the Dukes ball],” he again said. “I do know that they’re handmade so you’re never going to get two balls exactly the same. I do think this summer has been a bit of an anomaly for us. We’re not used to getting this much sun and this much heat and squares as hard and outfields as firm so whether that plays a part or not [I don’t know]. It’s one of those things where if the balls are going out of shape, you change them and you don’t make a big deal out of it. I don’t think it’s the end of the world. I think it adds a different dynamic to the game and you’ve got to be skilful enough to adapt to the changes, whether it stops swinging or starts swinging or does a little bit more.”

“I don’t want to get myself in trouble by trying to rewrite the thing but I think that’s one way of policing the ball thing,” Root further added. “In terms of over rates it can be quite difficult on a day like today. We’re not used to this are we? Thirty [degrees] in England feels like 45 elsewhere. But I guess just try and keep on top of it as much as you can.”

Meanwhile, Jasprit Bumrah couldn’t recall any ball-change incident that happened on his previous tours to England in 2018 or 2021-22 as well.

“The ball changes, I don’t really control that. Obviously I don’t really want to lose out on money because I worked very hard, I bowled a lot of overs, so I don’t want to say any controversial statement and get my match fees deducted. But we were bowling with the ball that we were given and that’s how it is. We can’t change it, we can’t fight it. Sometimes it goes your way, sometimes you get a bad ball, that’s how it is,” Jasprit Bumrah concluded.