CHIPPENHAM and Biddestone captains Steve Silk and Kris Boulton say the new
Dukes ball they are playing with this season favour the bowlers too much.
The skippers made the comments after Boulton's Biddestone beat Silk's
Chippenham for the first time in a competitive match, with a total of just
136.
The league switched from Readers to Dukes at the start of this season, but
two skippers believe the new ball is favouring the bowlers because it moves
around so much.
Silk said: "The Dukes cricket ball made for an interesting day. In my career
of playing for 20 years I've never seen the ball move so much in a senior
game of cricket.
"Three extremely competent batsmen (Chippenham's openers), who score runs
year in, year out, were made to look average because of this ball.
"I agree the ball was poor last year because after the first 10 overs the
shine would disappear. We've now gone to the other extreme where it's doing
as much in the 50th over as in the first over.
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"I think teams might be thinking about playing more seamers because of the
Dukes ball.
"There have been a lot of low scores and the cricket ball is a lot to do
with that. I think a cricket ball should be produced for both batsmen and
bowlers.
"But at the end of the day that's what we're playing with and we've got to
get used to it."
Biddestone skipper Boulton said: "The game seemed very heavilyweighted
towards the ball. People say it's a batsmen's game, not at the moment it
isn't.
"These balls are considerably different and it's having a considerable
impact.
"I've been playing competitive cricket since I was 13 and I've never seen a
ball do that.
"A good batsman is now struggling against an average bowler. It's making
ordinary bowlers look good and really it shouldn't be.
"It needs to be evened out but whether they can do anything about it I don't
know.
"We're doing everything we can in the field, we just need one or two people
getting some runs.
"Hopefully that will come with just playing."
Chippenham were put in to bat by Biddestone and struggled to 135.
Silk's side were indebted to Ryan Higgins who hit a heroic knock of 68
despite suffering from flu.
Biddestone were in trouble at 37-5 but 49 from Naeem Khan and 24 from
Boulton helped them over the line for a landmark victory.
Clifton Folkes' figures of 6-21 came as scant consolation to Chippenham.
Biddestone are at home to Marshfield tomorrow, while Chippenham host
Goatacre.
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