The Prime Minister recently blamed the delay in the resumption of amateur cricket on the ball itself, calling it ‘a vector of disease’. Happily, tests have disproved this. Balls contaminated with Covid-19 showed no trace of it 30 seconds later — and recreational cricketers will be allowed to return to the field from this weekend.
Much of the complexity of cricket comes from the interplay between wood, turf and the leather of the ball. Bats have changed greatly over the centuries, from curved to straight, from thick to thin and back to thick again, but the ball has remained much the same. A core of rubber and cork wrapped tightly with string, then encased in leather, stitched in a way to create a prominent seam running around the ball.
When the gentlemen gamblers took over cricket in the 18th century and bet vast sums on the outcome of matches, it became imperative that the balls be standardised.
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