The Indian skipper, Virat Kohli on Tuesday joined teammate Ravichandran Ashwin in voicing his displeasure over the decreasing quality of SG Test balls used during the first Test against England as the balls became completely soft by the 60th over with stitches coming off their seam. The Indian bowlers were evidently unhappy about the condition of the red cherry but the two on-field umpires — Nitin Menon and Anil Chaudhary — didn’t pay much heed to their request for a change of ball.
Talking about the same, Virat Kohli said, “Quality of the ball (SG-Test) was also not what we were very pleased to see as that was also the case in the past. Just the ball completely being destroyed in 60 overs is not something that you experience as a Test side or any side could be prepared for. Having said that it’s not an excuse and England played better cricket and they deserve to win.”
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The India skipper addressing the media after India’s 227-run defeat to England on the fifth and final day of the opening Test in Chennai. There were reports that the Meerut-based Sanspareils Greenlands (SG) had produced a new variety of balls for the series with pronounced and enhanced (heightened) seam, darker color, and harder cork, but it seems that problems that the players had with the quality of the balls, remains.
On Monday, Ashwin, who had managed to scalp nine wickets in the match, also said that they didn’t expect a torn seam with stitches being peeled off.
Talking about the ball, R Ashwin had said, “I have never seen an SG ball tear (get torn) through the seam like that. So it could well be a combination of how hard the pitch was on the first two days, even in the second innings after the 35th-40th over, the seam was getting sort of peeled off.”
Ashwin called it bizarre and like Virat Kohli, he also hadn’t experienced anything like this.
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The veteran spinner explained, “It was bizarre, I mean, I haven’t seen an SG ball like that in last so many years, but yeah, maybe it could be due to the pitch and the hardness of it through the center which is making the ball get scuffed up. We will have an answer for it going through the series.”
