Change ball after 60-65 overs instead of 80, suggests Dukes ball manufacturer

London: A big talking point this Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy has been the Dukes ball. Players from both camps have often complained about the ball going out of shape too easily. They’ve also rued about it turning soft after 30 odd overs or so, rendering it almost ineffective on placid pitches that have been the feature this series.

Understandably, Dilip Jajodia, owner of the company British Cricket Balls Limited that manufactures these balls that are still considered the gold standard in the industry, is peeved. A Bishop Cotton Boys’ School alumnus, who was at Lord’s on the second day’s play of the thirs Test, spoke to DH about the controversy and setting up an office in Bengaluru to enter the highly competitive Indian market. Excerpts.

What are your thoughts on the controversy surrounding balls going out of shape and soft?

You’ve got factors like the climate. This year the weather in England has been very unusually hot. And a very important development over the last few years has been the advent of the powerful bats. The balls are being hit harder, farther, and therefore hitting things like pillars and seats and so on. So, all these things have an impact on the ball. When you look at the ball objectively, it’s a small round object and it’s been battered all day. And to expect that to be perfectly in shape all day is an impossibility. It can’t be done. Nobody can do it.

You try and do your best that it maintains its shape as best as it can. With regards to ball going soft, it’s supposed to go soft. You can’t have a ball that stays exactly the same for 80 overs. Of course, you’ve got the human element. The workers are not exactly the same. It’s like handwriting, there might be slight variations. That’s the romance of cricket, that it’s not exactly the same. We try to make it exactly the same, but it’s never going to be exactly the same.

Apart from the brutal summer, are drier pitches too contributing to the problem?

Leather will be subject to wear and tear more on a drier and harder pitch. I mean, in the good old days of English cricket where the pitches were green and moist, the gold would be on the ball even after 50 overs. It would be beautifully protected, but those days are gone. I’ve suggested a few things. One might be to consider changing the ball after a lesser number of overs, like 60, 65 (instead of 80). I have a white ball that lasts 50 overs, but they’re still using a ball that can’t last 50 overs, and they’re having 25 overs from each end (in one-day internationals). 

How are you viewing this constant criticism?

We’re obviously always looking to see if there’s a problem. But I can assure you, we take this hugely seriously. We don’t want to have our reputation tarnished because we’re not making the product properly. We’re making the product the best we can. There’s a review at the end of the season, and if there’s an issue, we can take it up. You can’t suddenly change and go to another batch and so on. We could produce a ball that stays hard for a longer period of time, but players will have broken fingers and broken bats. So, you have to make it to the standard. 

You were in India recently to expand your business. Could you throw some light on it?

India’s captain Shubman Gill and Akash Deep complain to the umpires about the shape of the ball on the second day of the third Test at Lord’s on Friday.

The first thing is that we have launched Dukes Cricket LLP in India. We’re there and already selling balls. We already have a manufacturing unit in Meerut doing balls for the Indian market. Cricketer and veteran administrator Brijesh Patel and his son are going to be our partners. The office has been set up in Bangalore. We’re going to attack the Indian market. We don’t want to be the biggest in all that stuff. We just want to produce good quality cricket balls for the market. You need competition.

The unique thing about the Indian set-up is that the balls will be actually fabricated in Meerut but transferred to Bangalore for finishing as we do here. We get the balls fabricated from the South Company and we finish them here (in London), which is very important. So the heartbeat of the company will be Bangalore.