With a Dukes ball in one hand and multiple gestures with the other, India captain Shubman Gill was as animated as possible while talking to umpire Saikat.
The umpire was trying his best to calm Gill down but India’s 25-year-old captain was fuming. The unusual halt in play after the fourth ball of the 91st over of England’s innings and Gill’s outburst was the ball change. It happened after the original second new ball went out of shape.
One generally doesn’t see the fielding side complaining about the ball, which has yielded them three wickets in the first half-hour of a day’s play, but India, for some strange reason, complained to the umpires, forcing a ball change. The umpire ran a gauge test, and after it failed, they got it changed. 63 balls and three wickets later, India got the second new ball changed.
Mohammed Siraj bowled just one ball with the changed cherry and handed it to Gill, who was absolutely furious with it. India thought the changed ball was not new enough for them to extract the same amount of movement from the pitch.
After the umpires somehow managed to send Gill away, Siraj took the ball in his hand and instead of running to bowl the next ball, walked to the umpire asking for another ball change. “Is this a new ball? Seriously?” the stump microphone caught him telling the umpire, who instructed him to walk back to his mark and carry on with the proceedings.
Shubman Gill argues with the umpires after ball change
Ball change backfires as India squander advantage
As it turned out, India’s bowlers did not get the same movement with the changed ball. England, after losing captain Ben Stokes, Joe Root, and Chris Woakes in the first 30 minutes, staged a fightback with Brydon Carse and Jamie Smith.
Drinks were called three overs later and Shubman Gill once again seen having an animated chat with the umpires. According to Cricbuzz, “the previous ball had swung a whopping 2.6 times more on average than the changed one did in Overs 91-95. The average seam movement has been consistent.” So, Gill had every reason to be angry.
As India were caught up in the ball change drama, Carse and Smith not only took England past the 300-run mark but also brought up their 50-run partnership, nearly undoing all the hard work done by Bumrah in the initial stage of Day 2.
There was more drama as the replacement ball needed to be changed after just 48 deliveries of action but by then Carse and Smith had done a lot of damage to India.