Ball Maligning Charges

In the world of cricket balls, entire dramas are constructed around things like stitch count, lacquer coating and rubber-cork mixture.

In the world of cricket balls, entire dramas are constructed around things like stitch count, lacquer coating and rubber-cork mixture. Ball manufacturers, though, are not very impressed, especially with north Indian Ranji teams. “When the BCCI complains to us about ball quality, we notice that 80 per cent of the complaints come from games featuring UP, Delhi and Punjab. Few complaints come from the south. That’s because of north Indian cunning,” an SG official says. He says that since a ball becomes unresponsive after a few overs, fielding captains try to have it exchanged—by complaining that it has gone out of shape. “Most of them come from Mohammad Kaif. When we asked him about it, he said it was part of the whole thing. As for us, we lose sleep.”

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Rahul Bhatia