Usman Khawaja, Australia's opening batter, has echoed Ricky Ponting's displeasure at the crucial ball-change midway through the fourth innings of the fifth Ashes Test at the Kia Oval, stating that he "hadn't felt the ball hit my bat as hard" at any other stage of the series, despite facing more than 1200 deliveries across the five Tests.
Khawaja finished the series as Australia's leading batter with 496 runs at 49.60, and while he and David Warner were adding 140 for the first wicket, their pursuit of a stiff 384-run target appeared to be firmly on track.
However, umpires Joel Wilson and Kumar Dharmasena changed the ball after the first delivery of the 37th over of the innings, deeming that it had gone out of shape after Mark Wood hit Khawaja on the helmet with a bouncer. Only 11 more balls were bowled on the second afternoon after the change of ball.
The replacement appeared to be significantly harder and newer than the ball that had been used previously. England took three early wickets on the fifth morning, with Chris Woakes dismissing Khawaja and Warner in consecutive overs, before Wood had Marnus Labuschagne caught in the slips. Australia then lost a further five wickets in quick succession to Moeen Ali and Woakes, before Stuart Broad - still armed with the replacement ball - sealed victory in the 95th over of the innings.
"We started off really well," Khawaja said at the post-match presentations. "The big thing was that ball. As soon as they changed that ball, the first over they changed that ball I knew straightaway this ball is very different. I went straight up to Kumar and said 'how old is this ball you've given them because it feels like it's about eight overs old.' You could see the writing on both sides and it hit my bat so hard.
"Obviously I got hit in the head by Woody, and they changed the ball because they said it got damaged. But that new ball that came in, when I hit my bat … I've opened in every single innings this Ashes series and I haven't felt the ball hit my bat as hard as that ball felt when it hit my bat.
"So I said to the boys even coming into today to be careful, this new ball, it's going to be tricky. It's going to be a lot harder than that other ball. Some things you can't control in this game. It was disappointing for us because I felt like we had a real stranglehold on that game."
Speaking during the lunch break, Ponting, the former Australia captain, suggested the umpires had either been "blasé" in their approach to changing the ball, or had not been given an appropriate replacement in the box of balls brought onto the pitch by the fourth umpire, David Millns.
"The biggest concern I have is the big discrepancy in the condition of the ball that was chosen to replace the one [that had gone out of shape]," Ponting said on Sky Sports. "There's no way in the world you can even look at those two balls there and say in any way are they comparable.
"At the end of the day, if you are going to change the ball, you want to make sure that you get it right, so [you make it] as close as you possibly can to the one that you're changing it from. Now if you have a look in that box, there weren't too many older-condition balls in there. There were some older ones that were picked up, the umpires looked at that and threw them back.
"I just cannot fathom how two international umpires that have done that a lot of times before can get that so wrong. That is a huge moment in this game, potentially a huge moment in the Test match, and something I think actually has to be investigated: whether there was the right condition of balls in the box, or the umpires have just, blasé, picked one out of there that they think will be okay to use."
Sky showed ball-tracking data that suggested the ball had both seamed and swung significantly more on the fifth morning than on the fourth afternoon, prompting Ponting to call for an investigation.
"The conditions were perfect for bowling this morning, let's say that," Ponting said. "The conditions were better for bowling this morning. But what I saw last night, that ball there, I'll put my hand up and say I've got absolutely no doubt at all that that ball would not have done anywhere near as much as what that one did this morning.
"Double the amount of movement this morning from yesterday afternoon, seam movement and swing. I think it's a huge blunder that needs to be investigated."
According to Law 4.5, if the umpires agree that the ball has become "unfit for play through normal use", they should replace it "with a ball which has had wear comparable with that which the previous ball had received before the need for its replacement".
Marcus Trescothick, England's assistant coach, said on the second evening that the new ball seemed "just a bit harder" than the old one.
"The boys could sense the ball was making a different sound off the bat," he said. "Immediately, there's a bit more life in it. Balls seem to have gone very soft, very fast in this game - and this series. Both captains have tried to change them on numerous occasions."
Glenn Maxwell, who is part of Australia's limited-overs set-up, tweeted shortly after the first wicket to fall: "Beware the 2nd newy #ashes".
An ICC spokesperson told ESPNcricinfo: "We do not comment on on-field decisions. As you would expect, umpiring performance is continually evaluated."