ENG vs IND Lord’s Test | Dukes ball the talk of the town

The Dukes ball, which has long been used for Test matches in England, has drawn flak during the ongoing Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy series.

With the conditions in England unusually dry this summer, the bowlers have had to put in the hard yards to claim wickets on flat decks.

Both teams repeatedly requested a change of ball in the first two Tests, stating that the Dukes ball was getting unusually soft quite soon. While the manufacturers defended their product, India’s vice-captain Rishabh Pant admitted that the ‘de-shaping’ of the ball has been irritating for the players.

Irritating

“In this series, I have seen the ball getting deformed too much. It’s irritating for the players because every ball plays in a different way,” Pant said on the eve of the third Test at Lord’s.

“When it [the ball] becomes softer, sometimes it’s not doing too much. But as soon as you change the ball, it starts to do enough. So as a batter, you’ve got to keep adjusting to it. But at the same time, I feel it’s not good for cricket eventually.”

Earlier, India captain Shubman Gill, too, had raised concerns over the quality of the Dukes ball, and on Wednesday, he got the backing of his English counterpart Ben Stokes.

“We’re not the only ones — whenever touring teams come here, there have been issues with the ball going soft and out of shape. I’m not even sure the rings we use are the standard Dukes rings,” Stokes said.

“It’s not ideal, but you deal with it. If you think the ball is out of shape, you ask the umpire to check it, and if it passes through the ring, you just crack on. If it doesn’t — once it’s sufficiently out of shape — you get a new one. It was definitely an issue at Edgbaston, and it’s something all bowling attacks have had to contend with”.

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