WORLD CUP 2010: Emile Heskey blames the Jabulani ball for horror miss against USA



By Arindam Rej for MailOnline

Emile Heskey claimed the Jabulani ball contributed to his bad miss against USA on Saturday night - and said that goalkeeper Tim Howard was 'lucky' to save his shot.



The England striker gave an impressive display, as Fabio Capello preferred him over Peter Crouch for England's World Cup opener, but was criticised for spurning the outstanding opportunity.

It's the ball's fault: Emile Heskey (left) saw his shot saved by Tim Howard when clean through and blames the ball

The Aston Villa striker defended himself by saying: 'With my chance in the second half, the keeper (Howard) stood up quite well. I just tried to get as much power behind it as possible because these balls do move around. He has done well but he is lucky it has caught him right in the midriff but we kept plugging away and kept creating chances.



'Wazza (Wayne Rooney) had a shot which looked it was going in but at the last minute it swerved a bit and went wide. That is what these balls do.'

Heskey also called for better service from his team-mates.



He said: 'The final ball wasn't as good as it should have been. I think as a team we were pressing quite high up the pitch, and we got the early rewards from that, so we have to keep doing that.I just wanted to get hold of the ball, bring players into the game, and we managed to do that.'



Speaking about goalkeeper Robert Green's blunder, which handed USA a soft equaliser in the 1-1 draw, Heskey said: 'Greeny is an experienced keeper and the reason he is there with England is because of all the brilliant stuff he has done.

'He made a great save in the second half from (Jozy) Altidore and people probably won't remember that because of the mistake he made. But he's a keeper who has been there and done it and he can bounce back from this.'



