The ManicaPost
On the point with Aubrey Kamba
IF you love cricket, you must know that there are two balls used in cricket matches. In One Day Internationals (ODI), usually a white leather ball is used and in Test Cricket matches, a red leather ball is used.
Earlier on in the evolution of the sport, red balls were used for all the matches, but in matches played at night, it was difficult to see the red balls because its colour looked brown in floodlights.
White balls were actually manufactured for matches that were supposed to be played at night because of their good visibility, but they became dirty easily and also their quality worsened faster.
White balls get dirty and deteriorate faster than red balls, but have greater visibility. Red balls are less visible than white balls (usually when a match is being played at night), but can last longer. Both of these issues are solved by the use of pink balls which are visible even at night and deteriorate slower than white balls.
Difference between red and white balls
There are many things that make a red leather ball and a white leather ball different.
Red balls have a leathery structure because of no additional coating to it. It has the natural shine of the leather. Whereas white balls have a glassy texture to them because of the polyurethane layer used on the white balls (balls manufactured by the Dukes). This layer is used so that the white balls do not get very dirty and acts as a protective cover for white balls.
White balls are smoother and softer than red balls due to the additional coating of polyurethane used on them, making them prone to easy swings. Though white balls start to swing at an early age itself, it also fast loses this quality. Because of this, white balls are usually replaced with another ball of the same age, but reconditioned by cleaning and whitening it.
Manufacturers: There are basically three main manufactures of the cricket balls namely Kookaburra, Dukes and SG.
According to Kookaburra, they make red and white balls in exactly the same manner with the same processes, except of dying them with different colours and this means that there should not be any difference in the quality of the balls, but according to the people who play with the balls, white balls swing more than red balls. At the early times, they will swing quite more and as time passes and the ball starts to deteriorate, reverse swing can also be obtained.
Unlike Kookaburra, Dukes manufacture red balls and white balls differently and this can mean that the aerodynamics of the balls may differ. In the manufacturing of white balls, they use two layers of the polyurethane fluid, one which is white in colour and another that is a transparent and gives extra shine to the Dukes’ white balls.
The red balls are manufactured differently and the outermost layer is the shellac polish after colouring it red. Conventional swing is easier, but generating reverse swing can be a little difficult in the beginning of the match.
Like Dukes’, SG balls are also stitched manually, which makes them stronger as compared to the Kookaburra balls. According to players and results of various experiments, obtaining reverse swing using SG balls is quite easy.
It is difficult to choose which balls are the best because they have their own advantages and disadvantages.
Kookaburra balls are mostly used in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe test matches. Dukes are mostly used in England and West Indies. While India uses SG balls. It is visible Kookaburra balls are most dominating in the cricket world.
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