Dukes questions ‘inexplicable’ delay

The British manufacturer of one of cricket’s most popular balls has dismissed Boris Johnson’s suggestion that its product could be a “vector” for Covid-19 in the club game.

Dilip Jajodia, whose company manufactures the Dukes ball used in international cricket as well as in the grass-roots game, says sanitising precautions would all but remove the risk of contamination. Joining a campaign by The Daily

Telegraph for the imminent return of the club game as lockdown restrictions ease, Jajodia, managing director at British Cricket Balls, said the Government’s current resistance was “inexplicable”. The Prime Minister was really “overdoin ing it”, he said, by claiming the ball was a “vector for the disease”.

The delay is already hitting company profits. “There’s been a massive, massive impact on the sales of balls because, basically, everybody was ready to go for this season, having ordered and received balls,” Jajodia said. “Now they’re in limbo while it’s all shut, so, of course, my problem is now next year. I just hope this delay doesn’t mean that people break the habit of playing cricket altogether.”

The virus risk, he believes, can easily be navigated if all players regularly sanitise hands and swing bowlers are instructed not to use spit. The ball could also be sanitised intermittently during a match, and if it runs out of play and is touched by a spectator, he said.

“You know the players are sanitising, so unless it goes off the pitch, and somebody finds the ball in the bushes and throws it back, there is no issue.

“We have two types of finish to our balls – the traditional English, which absorbs grease and moisture, and we’ve got our new finish which is a harder surface finish, which is actually resistant to water altogether.”

The Government is understood to be inching closer to allowing club cricket to return after the Telegraph campaign won support from scientists, as well as England all-rounder Ben Stokes, other leading cricketing figures, and politicians from both Conservative and Labour.

The England and Wales Cricket Board, meanwhile, has submitted detailed plans for how cricket can be made as Covid-safe as possible and is hopeful that the Government will give permission imminently for a resumption, allowing club cricket to restart as soon as a week tomorrow.