London: The red Dukes ball’s tendency to become too soft too quickly has become a hot topic of discussion in this series. The softer ball is being seen as the reason why batters have plundered runs with ease.Both the home team and India captain Shubman Gill have pointed this out, with Gill saying, “Even more than the pitch, the ball is going soft and out of shape very quickly. If the ball is doing something, you enjoy playing. If you know there are only 20 overs of help and then you have to spend the rest of the day on the defensive, the game loses its essence.”There are murmurs in English cricket that the historically pronounced seam on the Dukes ball has become significantly blunt. Some even feel that it feels more like a Kookaburra ball, which has seams that flatten out as the ball gets older.Dilip Jajodia, owner of the company that manufactures the Dukes ball, said multiple factors were behind the balls going softer. He said this year was more like the dry summer of 1976, when the West Indies batters dominated right through the tour. “It is not like I wake up one morning and decide to make the balls differently. There is a standard process of manufacturing. But one must consider the variable factors as well. The beauty about cricket is that there are so many variables at play,” Jajodia told TOI. “The ground staff and I here in London shared a joke. Whenever players struggle, it comes down to the pitches or the ball.”Jajodia believes pitch preparation in England has changed over the years and the surfaces have become harder. “Even during the off season, the curators have these tent-like covers (the hovercraft covers) that don’t help in retaining moisture. This has made the surfaces inherently dry,” he sad.
According to Jajodia, there is also the compulsion to produce harder surfaces for T20 and The Hundred. “There are more white-ball matches now. The pitches have become harder. One must also realise that the batters hit the ball a lot harder in Test cricket these days. The batters bat aggressively and the scoring rate is high. The balls hit the hard surfaces at the boundary a lot more often. It will have an impact on the shape and hardness of the ball,” Jajodia said.The struggles of the bowlers with the older ball have become apparent because of the lack of reverse swing. Jajodia said, “Players these days wear kits made of polyester. Back in the day, you may recall Malcolm Marshall would tuck a cotton towel in his trousers, which helps in polishing the ball with the sweat around the neck and forehead. You didn’t even need saliva then.”Interestingly, the Sanspareils Greenlands (SG) ball used in India also came under the same criticism a few years ago. SG worked on it and found a way to retain the hardness. Jajodia says he is in touch with the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) and is trying to work around the problem within International Cricket Council (ICC) guidelines.
