PLAYING THE BALL

THIS SUMMER, THE TEAMS CONTESTING the County Championship have been issued with a clear instruction from Brendan McCullum, the coach of the England national team, and Ben Stokes, the Test match captain: bowl fast, use spinners, and bat aggressively. Of course, nobody coaching or captaining their county team needs to follow the orders of McCullum and Stokes, but the demand has come with a rule change. This summer, four rounds of county championship matches will be played not with the DUKES BALL — English-made, hand-stitched, and which swings and seams more and for longer — but with a KOOKABURRA. Australian-made, machine-manufactured, the Kookaburra has a less pronounced seam and moves less in the air and off the pitch. This is the result of the High-Performance Review of English cricket led by…

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The Critic (Digital) - 1 Issue, May 2024

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