{"id":201354,"date":"2025-10-09T21:27:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T21:27:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/201354\/"},"modified":"2025-10-09T21:27:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T21:27:10","slug":"county-championship-set-to-scrap-kookaburra-ball-reaction-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/201354\/","title":{"rendered":"County Championship set to scrap Kookaburra ball, reaction, video"},"content":{"rendered":"

England is considering scrapping use of the Kookaburra ball in the County Championship after three seasons, with directors of cricket reportedly agreeing to ditch the controversial experiment.<\/p>\n

The Kookaburra\u2019s introduction, recommended in a 2022 high performance review led by former Test captain Andrew Strauss, was designed to mimic foreign conditions and better equip English seamers for future overseas tours, most notably the 2025\/26 Ashes tour of Australia. <\/p>\n

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The machine-made Kookaburra \u2014 used in Test matches in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa \u2014 has a less \u00adpronounced seam and goes softer earlier, moving less extravagantly through the air and off the pitch, while the hand-stitched Dukes \u2014 used for Tests in the United Kingdom \u2014 has a tendency for greater lateral movement. The two balls are coated in a different type of lacquer, further distinguishing their behaviour.<\/p>\n

Kookaburra balls were used during the first two rounds of the 2023 County Championship before it was expanded to four rounds in 2024 and 2025. However, as first reported by The Telegraph<\/a>, the experiment is likely to be scrapped following a post-season meeting between directors of cricket.<\/p>\n

The England and Wales Cricket Board\u2019s professional game committee \u2014 which has the authority to remove the Kookaburra \u2014 will make a final decision on the matter next month.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

County Championship matches featuring the Kookaburra featured plenty of dull, batter-dominated contests \u2014 last year, 17 of the first 18 matches using the Australian-made ball ended as a draw<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This season, Surrey posted a club-record score of 9-820 in a Kookaburra clash against Durham in London, while during the same round Warwickshire declared on 7-679 while facing Hampshire. There were 59 centuries during the first two rounds of Kookaburra matches of this year\u2019s County Championship, with an average first-innings total of 430.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ball goes very soft very quickly and there\u2019s no competition between bat and ball when it\u2019s a good wicket with a Kookaburra early season in England,\u201d Middlesex coach Richard Johnson said last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully it\u2019s an experiment we don\u2019t carry on with.\u201d<\/p>\n

Surrey\u2019s former Director of Cricket Alec Stewart called the Kookaburra ball\u2019s introduction \u201cthe worst decision ever\u201d, while Yorkshire head coach Anthony McGrath said he was \u201cnot sure why we are using it\u201d. Asked for his thoughts on the matter, Somerset captain Lewis Gregory replied: \u201cCan I swear?\u201d <\/p>\n

Last year, managing director of the England men\u2019s cricket Rob Key hailed the Kookaburra\u2019s implementation as a success, arguing it had forced pace bowlers to find methods of taking wickets in unhelpful conditions.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would use the Kookaburra all the time. English cricket would be much better off for it,\u201d Key said at the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cTeams need to find quicker bowlers or ones who will force a wicket. You can\u2019t just keep running up bowling at 75mph. And in terms of those guys who are not express, you really work out who can bowl.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want us to be the best team in the world for a generation; this will be one way to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"England is considering scrapping use of the Kookaburra ball in the County Championship after three seasons, with directors…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":201355,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[6074,125734,125745,125750,64,63,689,125751,125738,125749,740,125739,1950,1208,33511,95509,125752,2057,57550,125741,2105,5330,125746,125743,3415,125735,2022,31024,1736,3583,677,1948,125744,125736,125740,1183,18780,85,125742,125748,125737,3586,125747],"class_list":["post-201354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-africa","tag-andrew-strauss","tag-andy-kearns","tag-anthony-mcgrath","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-ball-experiment","tag-batting-dominance","tag-county-coaches","tag-cricket","tag-cricket-chiefs","tag-cricket-news","tag-england","tag-england-and-wales-cricket-board","tag-english-cricket","tag-english-seamers","tag-europe","tag-final-decision","tag-forced-pace-bowlers","tag-getty-images-inc","tag-head-coach","tag-josh-hull","tag-kookaburra-balls","tag-lateral-movement","tag-lewis-gregory","tag-london","tag-mitchell-starc","tag-new-zealand","tag-northern-europe","tag-oceania","tag-pat-cummins","tag-post-season-meeting","tag-professional-game-committee","tag-richard-mentor-johnson","tag-south-africa","tag-southern-africa","tag-sports","tag-stuart-van","tag-stuart-van-der-merwe","tag-three-year-experiment-set","tag-united-kingdom","tag-worst-decision"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201354\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}