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Zak Crawley admission adds to Aussie pain after Ashes ball-change controversy

The England opener has addressed the furore surrounding the fifth Test and made a major admission.

adam lucius
Contributor
·3-min read
Zak Crawley, pictured here during the fifth Ashes Test.
Zak Crawley has spoken out about the controversial ball change that benefited England in the fifth Ashes Test. Image: Getty

England opener Zak Crawley admits the controversial changing of the ball late in the fifth Ashes Test changed the course of the match, declaring "it made the difference in the end". The Australians entered the final day 0-135 chasing 384 but quickly lost three key wickets as the replacement ball came to life, hooping all over the place in stark contrast to the docility of the original ball.

Chris Woakes and Stuart Broad were unplayable at times, eventually bowling Australia out 50 runs short of their target. The visitors were angry the new ball was not a like-for-like replacement and have no doubt it impacted their run chase.

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Crawley did not deny the ball switch gave the hosts a huge advantage. Speaking on the 'Vaughany and Tuffers Cricket Club' podcast, the opener was jokingly asked by former England captain Michael Vaughan "who was the genius that put that older newer ball in the box?"

Crawley laughed: "I'm not sure. Maybe one of the support staff snuck in there and put it in. It was a nice touch for us.

"You get good breaks and bad breaks throughout the series and both sides had their share of good breaks at times and bad breaks. It’s fair to say that was certainly a good break for us and probably made the difference in the end because the ball we had before wasn't doing much."

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Crawley also expressed regret his team didn’t meet up with Australian players for the traditional post-Ashes dressing-room drink, but backed skipper Ben Stokes' excuse that it was all a big misunderstanding. The Australians hung around The Oval after the completion of the Test in the hope of entering the England rooms to mark the end of a memorable series with a few drinks.

Despite repeated attempts, the home side's door remained locked and the get together never happened. "It was a shame that the timing just didn’t work,” Crawley said.

England players, pictured here after the fifth Ashes Test against Australia at The Oval.
England players look on after the fifth Ashes Test against Australia. (Photo by Gareth Copley/Getty Images)

"Obviously both teams do a debrief and ours is usually a bit shorter than it was on Monday night. We had ‘Broady’ (Stuart Broad) leaving, ‘Mo’ (Moeen Ali) leaving and one of the physios was leaving as well.

"So, we had our normal debrief plus a send-off for those guys. We were just in there a bit too long and it didn’t quite work for the Aussies. That was a shame. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, the timings just didn’t quite work."

Stokes tweeted the two teams had instead planned to catch up in a nightclub later that night, although exact details were scant. England players were spotted at a McDonald's in the early hours of Tuesday morning, indicating they'd gone hard after levelling the series at 2-2 with a 49-run win at The Oval.

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