budgetmeansbudget wrote:I seem to remember that theory being aired by one of the sky pundits recently.
Have the manufacturers commented?
What does a bad batch mean? Every ball made this year?
Surely every ball is made in exactly the same way with exactly the same materials. Maybe the weather has affected the cork tree in some way or the leather has come from a different breed of cow?!
All seems a bit far fetched, and another excuse for bad batting!
It's strange but I've heard players before saying they were sure a certain batch of balls (!) behaved differently. As you say it could well be an excuse but think the average runs per wicket this year is the lowest in about 45 years so there may be some merit to the argument ( although Colly did joke that his own stats this year probably dragged the overall average down!)
He said that the White kookaburra ball was no problem on the pitched at CLS but the red balls were seaming all over the place. I think that playing the 4 day games at either end of the season is a big factor.