India vs West Indies 2018: Umesh Yadav Criticises Quality Of SG Balls

India pacer Umesh Yadav became the latest player to criticise the quality of the SG ball as West Indies managed to recover from a stuttering start and end the day on a good note.

For the third innings in a row, India had West Indies on the mat. The visitors kept on losing wickets at regular intervals right from the start and were five down for just 113. At that stage, they were looking primed to be bowled out for another subpar total. However, Roston Chase led a spirited fightback, scoring an unbeaten 98 to help West Indies finish the day on a respectable 295 f0r 7. He received good support from Shane Dowrich and skipper Jason Holder who scored a fifty.

For India, it was a tough end to a promising day which began on a poor note. They lost debutant Shardul Thakur in just the fourth over of the day after the bowler walked off the field with a groin injury. He did not return to the field for the entire day and India had to bowl as many as 95 overs with just four frontline bowlers.

Speaking at the end of the play, Umesh Yadav did not hold back in criticising the quality of the SG balls, making it clear that taking wickets is tough once the ball gets old.

“What happens with SG balls is that they become soft after 20 overs. So the batsmen coming later don’t face much difficulty. So tailenders know that it will neither swing nor reverse. You just have to wait for something to happen and keep trying. But you can’t really do it on such a big ground, the ones and twos keep coming.

“All you can do is to bowl one spot. But then you will realise that nothing is happening even off the pitch nor is it swinging. So when middle and lower order comes in they know that ball has become soft and it doesn’t come at a pace and batting becomes easier,” he said.

Surprisingly, India decided to take the second new ball seven overs after it had become available. But by then the damage was already done as West Indies had managed to put themselves in a good position.

Umesh, meanwhile, is not the first Indian player to criticise the SG balls in recent times. Before the start of the ongoing Test, skipper Virat Kohli had echoed the same sentiments. Kohli had opened batted for the use of Duke balls in Tests.