Pakistan, England players warned against unnecessarily throwing ball on turf

Nottingham: The players of Pakistan and England were cautioned by on-field umpires, during Pakistan’s nail-biting 14 run win in World Cup match, to avoid throwing the ball unnecessarily on turf.

England captain Eoin Morgan and Pakistan’s Mohammad Hafeez, both confirmed that umpires did talk about it to the players during the play at Trent Bridge on Monday.

It is understood that both the teams were told by umpires to bounce the ball not more than once to the keeper. It is not uncommon for fielding sides to bounce the ball on turf during the play to soften it up or to scuff up at one side to gain reverse swing.

But, if umpires feel that players are using it as a tactic to alter the condition of ball then they interrupt.

And, they did the same during Pakistan vs England game in World Cup. However, no penalty was imposed on any side, which suggests there was no wrong doing.

Pakistan’s man of the match Mohammad Hafeez confirmed that Umpires did speak to Pakistanis on the matter.

“I think umpires were doing their job and there were incidents where ball was bounced more than once while being thrown back to keeper. At one point umpires warned us, probably after 20 overs, that if there will be any other  bounce they would impose penalty,” Hafeez told journalists at Trent Bridge.

“I took the ball to umpires to show them the condition,” he added.

England’s captain Eoin Morgan also confirmed similar discussions with umpires during Pakistan’s innings.

“The discussions were throughout the whole of the two innings. The umpires came to me after about -- I can't remember the exact over -- but it was mid-innings, and seemed to think that we were throwing the ball in on the bounce too much or it was being over-exaggerated and the other side said it would be the same for the both, so it was really back to stand that the conversations that were stopping the game where I thought Pakistan were doing the exact same thing,” Morgan said.

At one point, England’s Jose Butler aimed to check the condition of the ball as well.

“Jose was just intrigued to see when the ball gets hit against LED boards, it does scuff it up quite a lot, and I'm sure he was interested to see if one side was rougher than the other or if it looked natural or unnatural,” said England’s skipper.