Plan B Forum

MORE than a century of cricket history in Australia could vanish under a plan to introduce imported balls in domestic matches, a leading sports goods manufacturer believes.



In its bid to wrestle back the Ashes, Cricket Australia is hoping to deprive England of a competitive advantage by replacing Melbourne-made Kookaburra balls with the Dukes ball in some matches.

Kookaburra director Rob Elliot warned of dire consequences if the company’s support, from the Sheffield Shield to grassroots, collapsed.

"If we are not supported by cricket in Australia then Kookaburra won’t exist basically. If Cricket Australia and if cricket’s not supporting Kookaburra and wants to go down the imported path, then the manufacturing of cricket balls will go to the subcontinent and it will be the end of Kookaburra as we know it."
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The Dukes cricket ball is used in Tests in England and behaves differently to the Australian-made variety.

Elliot said he understood why Cricket Australia was introducing the Dukes ball in preparation for Tests against England, but questioned CA’s decision to trial the UK ball in under-age championships and some second XI matches this summer, with a longer-term view to introduce the Dukes in Sheffield Shield games.

"I see that as counterproductive," Mr Elliot said.

"I thought it would be appropriate for us to be using the only Australian made ball as opposed to a ball that’s made in the sub-continent in Pakistan or India. That’s the thing that concerns me is that all of a sudden this sort of thing erodes Australian manufacturing and Australian jobs."

Although the Kookaburra is the official ball supplier to the main cricket-playing nations other than India and England, Mr Elliot said the lion’s share of their sales was in Australia, where the company was founded 122 years ago.

CA senior cricket operations manager Sean Cary acknowledged there was an economic rationale for introducing a competitor to the Australian market — the Dukes are cheaper — and it was CA’s job to minimise the costs of playing the game.

But Elliot was not convinced.

"We live in a competitive world and that’s fine. We can accept the competition, proving the motivations are correct, which is let’s get the best ball for the game.

In its bid to wrestle back the Ashes, Cricket Australia is hoping to deprive England of a competitive advantage by replacing Melbourne-made Kookaburra balls with the Dukes balls in some matches.

VICTORIAN bowling coach Damien Wright has cast doubt on Cricket Australia's plan to seek a competitive edge over England by introducing Dukes balls to domestic cricket Down Under.

Spot the difference.... Duke and Kookaburra cricket balls. Photo: Dallas Kilponen

While CA's stated intention is to help in the battle against the Ashes foe and produce a more adaptable generation of cricketers for overseas tours, the plan has ignited a war between rival manufacturers, with Australian supplier Kookaburra expressing fears that its business could be under threat.

Wright, who recently returned to the Bushrangers after a stint as New Zealand bowling coach, thinks there is merit in experimenting with different balls in practice matches or training, but he is not convinced the Dukes, used in England and the West Indies, suit harsh Australian conditions.



''I probably wouldn't use them in Shield cricket, I wouldn't tamper too much with changing the Kookaburra ball that is traditional for us,'' Wright said.

''It [the Dukes] is a really good ball for England where the wickets are a bit softer and it's not as abrasive, so you can actually brush the ball up and get it swinging for the majority of the day over there. Here, I'm not sure it would stay good enough for the 80 overs. It might be OK somewhere like the Gabba but here [in Melbourne], Adelaide, I'm not too sure.

''We [New Zealand] toured the West Indies not long ago and their wickets are really dry and quite hard and abrasive. The ball didn't stay very new for very long. It made it very hard to get it back up to being decent to bowl with.''

The veteran paceman said the Kookaburra ''keeps it shape on our decks and it's a proven ball in our conditions''.



Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/sport/cricket/ ... z2AHQuffKP

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