We’ve solved the pink ball challenge says Dukes boss
COUNTIES will be tickled pink by the Dukes ball when the first ever full round of day-night County Championship matches begin on June 26.
That’s according to Dukes owner, Dilip Jajodia, who believes that the pink ball his company has now created will not only create an equal battle between bat and ball – but will also allow day/night Championship cricket to become a regular feature of the world’s oldest domestic competition.
The nine day/night round of fixtures is a culmination of years of work and trials in Abu Dhabi for the annual MCC and champion county fixture.
And Jajodia insists that his Dukes balls will be up to the challenge.
“The pink ball can’t be exactly the same as the red ball,” he tells The Cricket Paper.
“What we have managed to do, which I think everyone will see the benefit of, is dye the leather pink all the way through. Noone has done that before, it has generally been white with a pigment on the top – you get little chips of pink and then see white underneath. “Other balls have been different colours of pink when they’ve arrived, with no two boxes looking the same.We have now standardised on the colour and we also have a surface finish which will be good in all conditions.” Jajodia points to the ball used in Abu Dhabi back in March and the entertaining nature of a game that ended with a one-wicket win for the champions. It also encouraged spin, with Mason Crane taking four wickets with his leg-spin in the final innings of the match. The same ball will be in use in the final week in June. “This ball I’ve now produced is for the world,” says Jajodia. “There will be no fidlete dling about. I usually believe in tinkering with the ball for different conditions, but with the pink that’s not really possible.
“When it comes to the red, the (Dukes) ball in Australia and the one in England are totally different in the way the leather is tanned.The pink has to be universal and will work in all conditions.
“So far, wherever we’ve done testing it has come out really well.You can swing it, in fact, when the lights come on, it doesn’t hoop but it does swing just that little bit more. We saw evidence of that in Abu Dhabi.
“That’s a challenge for the batsman and that’s what spectators want to see. In that game Craig Overton got a couple of LBWs with balls that nipped back. I think it’s generally accepted that the ball does a little bit more but I think we’ve seen that it creates a good game of cricket.”
With the exception of Wednesday’s semi-final in Cardiff, the balance between bat and ball, in one-day cricket at least, is hopelessly skewed towards the batting side, with the white Kookaburra ball offering precious little assistance either through the air or off the pitch.
Bowlers will hope that the pink ball can even that up.