Dilip Jajodia, the owner of British Cricket Limited, the company which manufactures the Dukes ball, told Code Sports: "I'm going to investigate myself, because it affects me my name is at stake so it's important they don't misallege something wrong with the ball."

Code Sports reported that "whispers have emanated out of the English camp" since the conclusion of the Test suggesting that the ball might have been part of the 2018 or 2019 batches of Dukes, which offered more for seam bowlers, though Jajodia suggested that was unlikely.

"I can't imagine they would risk putting a ball in there with a different date on it," Jajodia said. "Frankly the match referee should be on top of it. We do bang that number in quite hard, so even if the gold comes off, the ball is imprinted. It wouldn't be easy to get rid of it. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's not likely."

Ponting was among those who questioned whether a sufficiently broad range of balls had been presented to the umpires to choose a replacement ball. But Jajodia explained that his company supplies balls directly to venues rather than to the ECB or the ICC.

"On this particular occasion, the balls would be done by Surrey," he said. "Surrey get the supply of balls from us before the season starts and then they start knocking them in, getting them into wear and tear in my view, they're probably not doing it that accurately."