The Daily Telegraph - 01.08.2019

The Daily Telegraph Thursday 1 August 2019 *** 11

SECRET WEAPON THAT

COULD DECIDE SERIES

I

t is an unexpected place to see

the immediate future of English

cricket being forged. But in a

modest factory in north-east

London, the owner holds in his

hand the object that might well

decide the destination of the Ashes.

It is an item of such mythology

that were an Australian batsman to

be observing its manufacture, it

might well have the same effect on

him as a vampire being shown a

clove of garlic. Because this is no

ordinary piece of sporting kit.

This is one of the dozen Dukes

balls on their way to St John’s

Wood, ready to be fired at speed in

the second Test at Lord’s.

“Look at the angled herringbone

of the stitching on the seam,” says

Dilip Jajodia, managing director of

British Cricket Balls Ltd, which

produces every cherry used in Test

matches played in England (the

ones for the Edgbaston Test this

week had already been delivered

when The Daily Telegraph visited).

“That doesn’t come by chance.

There’s 80 stitches on there, each

equidistant, and it takes years of

experience to perfect the art of

doing it. The very best stitchers

can complete one in 3½ hours.

Proper craftsmanship.”

The ball is a thing of beauty.

A deep burgundy colour, polished

to a glorious sheen, topped off by

gold-embossed franking of the

royal coat of arms and the words

“Dukes Special County A”, it would

not look out of place in a case at an

art gallery. But it is not the ball’s

aesthetics that will catch the eye

when it is launched down the track

at Lord’s. It will be its potential, as

it swings through the air, to

torpedo the hopes of the batsman.

“I will be there, behind the

bowler’s arm, watching the first

ball bowled,” says Jajodia. “For me

that is the best moment of the

summer, the slightly nerve-racking

wait to see what it does.”

British Cricket Balls Ltd was

founded in 1760. Jajodia bought the

company in 1987 and moved

production from Kent to his

current premises in Walthamstow

in the mid-nineties.

The process of manufacture has

barely changed over the years. It

begins with four identical,

four-inch wide strips of leather

being cut from a cow hide. Two

strips are sewn together and

pressed into a cup shape. The two

cups are then eased around an

inner ball constructed of rubber

and cork. It is here that the

manufacture of the Dukes differs

from all others made in the world.

With the Kookaburra, for

instance, favoured in Tests in

Australia, the two cups are sewn

together by machine. With the

Dukes it is done by hand. And,

according to Jajodia, it is here that

Leather

layer

Cork and

Twine

Cork

rubber

Seam

ZERO

Dukes ball is an object

of beauty, and England

hope the Australians will

again fall victim to its

wiles, writes Jim White

following Border’s lead. Robin

Smith says Hughes varied his

greetings from “A---wipe” to

“F------ A---wipe”, there were no

post-play beers and, when Smith

asked if he could leave his crease to

prod down a divot in the pitch

when the ball was being returned

to the bowler, Border said to him:

“Mate, we’re not here to run you

out. We’re here to f----- knock you

out, you little p----.”

When Australia regained the

Ashes by winning the fourth Test,

England had already used 21

players, nine of whom announced

on the final day’s play that they had

joined the second English rebel

tour of South Africa. Three of them

were in the team and had spent

much of the match sorting out

their contracts in the Old Trafford

pavilion. “There was a mercenary

attitude in the air,” said Angus

Fraser. “And money seemed to be

at the root of the players’ actions.

That was sad.” In all England used

29 players, Australia merely 12.

At Trent Bridge Marsh, who had

not scored a century for three

years, made 138 and his opening

partner Taylor 219. England did not

take a wicket on the first day and

after Marsh finally fell on the

second morning, Gower rewarded

himself with a sarcastic glass of

champagne at lunch. Alderman

took his fifth five-for of the series,

his wicket-to-wicket line and late

swing beguiling England’s batsmen

and earning the indulgence of the

umpires. He finished the six-match

series with 41 wickets.

The thrashing set the tone for

the next seven series, all won by

Australia. Where their selectors

had stuck with Marsh and Waugh

until they rewarded faith with

match-winning contributions,

England restlessly looked for quick

fixes, wrecking careers on

selectors’ whims. A core of cussed,

combative cricketers – Michael

Atherton, Fraser, Jack Russell,

Smith and Devon Malcolm all

emerged that summer but each

would retire without experiencing

the joy of an Ashes victory.

Twelve hours’ rain at Edgbaston

and seven at the Oval saved

England from a 6-0 defeat but 4-0

did not save Gower, who was

sacked and dropped for the tour

of West Indies. On the last day of

the final Test the concept of

“full mental and physical

disintegration” was conceived

when Australia batted on simply to

grind England towards abject

demoralisation. Border’s approach

and the skill of his players made

them the best Test side in the

world for the majority of the next

two decades. In 1989 they took the

most significant step on the path to

hard-nosed global domination.

Total victory: Australia celebrate winning at Headingley

(left); the Trent Bridge scoreboard tells the sorry story (top);

David Gower and chairman of selectors Ted Dexter face the

music (above) while Australian supporters revel in victory

Expertise: The finishing touches are put to a Dukes ball at Walthamstow

the magic lies. “A machine-stitched

ball has two rows of stitches, the

other four on the seam are

decorative,” he says. “With hand

stitching, there are six rows which

all go into the ball.” It means it lasts

much longer; Dukes balls, he

claims, simply do not split. “Part of

the game’s subtlety comes from the

fact the ball changes character

across 80 overs,” he says. “But you

need it to mature like a fine wine,

not fall apart.”

To demonstrate his point he has

a Kookaburra and a Dukes which

have both been through a Test

innings. The difference is stark: the

Kookaburra is misshapen, its

leather dulled, its seam flattened

and splitting. On the still-round

Dukes the seam is intact. It is this

characteristic that makes it swing,

the stitching acting as a rudder as

the ball flies through the air, with

one side polished, the other left to

dull. And this season, much to

batsmen’s alarm, the seam will be

as pronounced as it ever was.

“For this summer’s county

championship the ECB asked us,

obviously within the specifications

in the rule book, slightly to flatten

the seam to give the batsmen more

of a chance,” says Jajodia. “Then

I think they suddenly thought, ‘Ah,

it’s the Ashes’, and for these Tests

they asked for the traditional

seam.” This will be music to James

Anderson’s ears. Jajodia rates him

the finest-ever manipulator of a

Dukes ball, turning an object of

beauty into a fearsome weapon.

Though he believes Mitchell Starc

will also like the ball.

“We are a friend of the bowler,”

says Jajodia. “Too much of the

game is slanted towards the

batsman. But who wants to see

sixes all the time? We like to see

batsmen working for their runs.”

The seam, though, is only part of

the reason bowlers can deliver

such menace from a Dukes. These

days balls are stitched somewhere

in the subcontinent (“I can’t tell

you precisely where,” says Jajodia.

“If I said India we’d never sell

another ball in Pakistan, and vice

versa”) then shipped to us for final

processing. Here everything is

done by hand, from printing of the

logo to the final polishing.

Technology is entirely absent; to

test that each ball bounces to the

correct specification, for instance,

it is simply dropped on to a

concrete block and the height it

rebounds checked against marks

on the wall before putting them

into containers according to their

quality. But each ball – whether it

be heading to Lord’s or to clubs in

places as unlikely as Norway,

Oman and Germany – is handled

with the sort of delicacy that

suggests it is a piece of ripe fruit.

“This one is going to Australia,”

says Jajodia. “They are going to be

using Dukes balls in the Sheffield

Shield from next season. I think

they’ve finally realised what

quality looks like.”

Until then, everyone of English

persuasion will hope, as the Ashes

begins, that the lack of Aussie

familiarity with the wiles of the

Dukes remains as potent as ever.

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