Victorian cricket boss Shaun Graf says the introduction of English-made Dukes cricket balls to the Sheffield Shield this year has been a failure.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Graf cannot be accused of whinging: Victoria won the Shield on Thursday. But Graf said it was despite ball, not because of it.
"I'm not a wrap. It goes horribly soft," he said. "We've had to replace at least two every game. It's not up to it."
Graf said the ball Dukes ball might work on a grassy pitch, for swing-based attack, like South Australia's. But it did not work for Victoria's seamers, on their home-away-from-home in Alice Springs. It does not reverse swing, for instance.
The Duke ball is replacing the Australian-made Kookaburra for the second half of this Shield season and the next two, partly to steel batsmen for the Ashes in 2019, also to put competitive tension into the market. But Graf said the Dukes ball was not actually the English classic, but a version made for the West Indies and adapted for Australia.
Graf acknowledged that it might tighten the technique of some young batsman, but that was all. "This is an Australian final, in Australian conditions, over five days, and we're not using an Australian ball," he said. "It seems ridiculous."
