Ashwin feels the SG ball in action is 'bizarre'

Never seen SG Test ball tear through seam, may be because of hard surface: Ashwin

The SG Test ball has failed to impress India's seasoned off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin, who found it bizarre that the ball's stitches came off the seam and it went soft within 40 overs during the ongoing game against England in Chennai.

It happened in both innings and Ashwin, who got nine wickets in the match, said that he has never seen an SG Test's seam starting to peel off like it happened in this match.

There were reports that the Meerut-based Sanspareils Greenlands (SG) had manufactured a fresh set of balls for the series with pronounced and enhanced (heightened) seam, darker colour and harder cork but it seemed that problems that players had with the quality of the balls remain.

"This game the ball is pretty, I mean, it was very bizarre for us," Ashwin said at the end of the day's play.

"Because I have never seen an SG ball tear (get torn) through the seam like that. So it could well be combination of how hard the pitch was on the first two days, even in the second innings after the 35th-40th over, the seam starting getting sort of peeled off," he said.

"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 centre which is making the ball gets scuffed up."

Ashwin hopes to know the reasons for this during the series.

"We will have an answer for it going through the series," said Ashwin, who had in 2018 admitted that he felt more comfortable bowling with the Kookaburra. PTI KHS