Concerns over quality of SG Test ball another reason why Dukes should become the standard red cherry

Ajit Vijaykumar 10:22 16/10/2018
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  • Umpire Kumar Dharmasena inspects a Duke ball during the England-India Test series.

    It started with Ravi Ashwin. Then Virat Kohli joined in. Thereafter Umesh Yadav too decided to speak his mind. The SG Test balls in India do not have the full backing of their home team anymore.

    Cricket balls for Test cricket are peculiar because there are three of them in operation. England uses the Dukes, Australia have the Kookaburra while India have the SG balls. Limited overs cricket is played with the white Kookaburra.

    But for some strange reason, we have three Test balls. And after the latest grumblings of the Indian team, one has definitely fallen well behind. All three Indian players have expressed their anguish at the dip in the quality of the SG ball.

    “To have a ball scuffed up in five overs is not something that we have seen before,” Kohli said during the Hyderabad Test against the West Indies. “The quality of the ball used to be quite high before and I don’t understand the reason why it’s gone down.”

    Before him, Ashwin had talked about the problems of bowling with the SG ball. “Pretty disappointed with the current SG ball. It used to be top notch, the seam used to stand up strong even after 70-80 overs. It’s not the same anymore,” Ashwin said in Rajkjot.

    And in the Hyderabad Test, Umesh – who ended up taking 10 wickets in the match – also talked about the poor quality of the ball.

    “What happens with SG balls is that they become soft after 20 overs so the batsmen coming later don’t face much difficulty. So tailenders know that it will neither swing nor reverse,” Umesh said.

    This has put the focus back on having uniformity in balls used in Test cricket, with the English Dukes emerging as the ball of choice. Firmer captains Mike Atherton and Nasser Hussain have advocated the use of Dukes across the world as it offers the most to all bowlers consistently.

    Test balls are unique as they need to behave a certain way during various stages of the game. They are expected to be nice and hard for the first few dozen overs before wearing down in a gradual manner, hopefully aiding spinners and reverse swing. Too much of any of those characteristics would result in a ball that is not suited for Test cricket.

    As of now, Dukes have been seen to retain their quality, shape and seam the longest, giving enough rewards to batsmen and bowlers. With the SG ball ostensibly dropping in quality, it’s high time for cricket administrators to take a call on a matter that has curiously never been looked into seriously before.

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