World Cup 2019: England angry with Pakistan’s handling of the ball at Trent Bridge

England and Pakistan played out a World Cup classic at Trent Bridge on Monday. The high-scoring contest went right down to the wire before Pakistan stunned the hosts and the World Cup favourites by 14 runs. The Men in Green had entered the contest on the back of 11 consecutive losses in ODIs including the seven-wicket defeat at the hands of Windies in their World Cup-opener. However, the past results made little difference as they registered their first win of the competition.

Put into bat first, the reigning Champions Trophy holders scored a mammoth 348 for 8 in the stipulated 50 overs. Veteran Mohammad Hafeez top-scored for his side by scoring 84. Babar Azam and skipper Sarfaraz Ahmed also scored fifties, scoring 63 and 55 respectively.

In reply, England started poorly and had lost Jason Roy, Jonny Bairstow, Eoin Morgan and Ben Stokes for just 118 runs. However, Joe Root and Jos Buttler scored centuries and added 130 runs for the fifth wicket to bring England’s chase on track. But Pakistan managed to dismiss both the set batsmen in quick succession and went on to restrict the hosts to 334 for 9 to register a monumental win.

But the thrilling game of cricket was marred by Pakistan’s ploy of changing the state of the ball. In order to extract reverse-swing on the flat pitch, the Pakistan players threw the ball constantly on the rough patches, much to England’s anger and frustration. England themselves had tried the same ploy as both the teams were warned by the on-field officials. But the hosts were just frustrated with the frequency at which Pakistan were doing it. Buttler, in fact, also checked the ball after he fell for 103.

Morgan on handling of the ball

Speaking at the end of the match, England skipper Eoin Morgan spoke on the matter and revealed that umpire had talked to him on the issue. “There were discussions throughout the whole of the two innings. The umpires came to me, mid-innings, and seemed to think that we were throwing the ball in on the bounce too much or it was being over exaggerated,” said Morgan.

“They emphasised it would be the same for both. It was really about us then… that conversations that were stopping the game were that Pakistan were doing the same thing. Jos was just intrigued to see the ball. When the ball is hit against the LED advertising boards it does scuff it up quite a lot so we he was just interested to see if one side was tougher than the other, natural or unnatural,” he added.