Unless you are a hopeless cynic, you turn up to the first morning of a Test bursting with anticipation of watching a contest between the bat and the ball. Then, in the 16th over of the first morning, you see the bowler and the captain complaining to the umpires about the ball. Then again in the 18th. Then in the 30th. Then in the 30th again, when the umpire reluctantly pulls out the gauge and the ball passes through it. Eventually, in the 56th over, the ball is changed.
It is a dance we are used to. The umpires are sympathetic but they can change the ball only if it goes out of shape and can't go through that gauge. There's a reason why teams are going on about it. It is not just, in this instance, England. India have had the same issue. The Dukes ball is going soft too soon. The pitches in the Bazball era are designed to offer very little movement to the bowlers, and the softer balls are adding to the nightmare.
In seven innings so far in this series, the first 30 overs have produced 17 wickets at an average of 48.53. That in itself is bad enough, but wait until you see what has happened to the older, softer ball. Overs 31 to 80 have produced just 15 wickets at an average of 105.04. The control percentage has gone up from 80.59% to 86.3%.
We have ball-by-ball records for over 50 bilateral Test series in England. Before this, the worst the old ball fared was 60.12. We have ball-by-ball records for over 420 bilateral Test series in the world. Only once - the notorious Sri Lanka in Pakistan, 2008-09 - has the old ball done worse.
Gen Z, even you are old enough to remember when the Dukes ball, with its hard seam and longer life, was a batter's "real" test against quick bowling. That is why even West Indies switched from the Kookaburra to the Dukes for their home Tests, to bring life to Test matches played there. The pitches are keeping the concurrent Tests in the West Indies lively, but even there, the ball is being complained about.
Josh Hazlewood said he has never bowled with a softer 70-over-old ball. Shubman Gill said he was told by those Indians with experience of playing in England that these balls tend to go soft after the 40th over but not so soft, and tend to start doing a little after the 60th over.
It is only for the manufacturers to say if the balls are going soft sooner by design, but they are under severe pressure. The ECB has introduced Kookaburra for two rounds of County Championship matches because it wants the ball to do less so that the system produces "fast" bowlers and not seamers who struggle on harder pitches in places such as the ones in Australia. It is fair to assume the manufacturers don't want to lose business.
In March 2023, Dilip Jajodia, the ball-maker, told The Telegraph that the balls in 2022 were, to quote Stuart Broad, "rubbish" because of a Covid-related manufacturing malfunction, one that he had stamped out.
Whether by design or by any other reason, this unholy union of flat, long-lasting pitches and quickly-softening Dukes balls are making the contest totally one-sided. It has turned the precious little available with the new ball into a precious commodity to make the most out of. It has made for ridiculous scorecards such as England's first innings at Edgbaston: five wickets in the first 22 overs of the first new ball, a 303-run stand with no wicket to the old ball, and then five more to the second new ball.
Because India had runs in the bank, they could afford to go on a short-ball barrage with the 31-over-old ball, but even the tall Prasidh Krishna could neither get the ball high enough nor hurry the batters. When nothing worked, India went to just containing with ODI-style fields while they waited for the second new ball. England have more or less been the same, making Shoaib Bashir bowl ridiculously long spells with the old ball.
Not just make batting easier and the contest non-existent, these frequently discarded balls leave the game more exposed than usual to quirky compromising of the contest as happened at The Oval in 2023, months after Jajodia said they were back to normal. The ball went out of shape in the 37th over, and the newer one did heaps more, derailing Australia's chase of 384.
These teams have tried most tricks bar use a wristspinner to get something out of the older ball this series, but it hasn't really worked for them. So far the best way to go about has been to be direct with the attack from the new ball and not waste a single delivery, and then just keep complaining to the umpires about the ball and hoping to get a harder one as the replacement.
India have done so again with the new ball in the fourth innings: going wider on the crease to bring the stumps into play more often. It is to their infinite credit that they have managed to bowl England out in those two brief windows with the two new balls in the first innings. They have taken three wickets in the 16 overs they had with the new ball on the fourth evening, giving themselves a great chance to level the series 1-1.
However, if they end up needing the second new ball on the final evening, while it might make for a thrilling finish, the end should not justify the way we get there.