Episode 14 - Counties vs Cities

Well, I think the first thing worth talking about is inevitably the Kookaburra ball, because it seems to me that that is the cause of a lot of what's happened.

We've seen one positive result out of 18 fixtures.

We've seen more runs in the first two rounds of the county championship than we've ever seen before.

Yeah, which is not traditional.

I mean, it's not unknown that entire rounds of county championship matches take place without a single victory.

Well, it's only

happened twice before.

Yeah, but one victory out of the round is actually relatively common.

So nice to see the old traditions being held up.

But all of this run scoring, I'm not sure about it at all.

There have been a lot of double centuries.

And a triple century.

And a triple century.

I think Sam North East broke the record for the individual score at Lourdes.

He scored 334, breaking Graham Gooch's 333 not out.

And the real difference there is that he did it in April, which is traditionally a torrid time for batters in England.

And the reason for that is because the atmospheric conditions, particularly the moisture in the air, has a tendency to favour the type of bowlers that have developed in England over the... over the years.

But that does seem to have been thrown into disarray by the temporary uptake of the Kookaburra ball.

So normally the county championship is played entirely 100% with a ball made by Dukes.

That's right, isn't it? And this year, for the first two rounds, they've decided to swap the Kookaburra ball, but not for the first time.

No, last season was the first.

And this all comes about as a result of the Strauss review, the review into English domestic cricket that Sir Andrew Strauss undertook.

After the failed Ashes review, series several years ago that examined what was going wrong in English cricket and how to fix it.

And the recommendation was because the kookaburra ball is used everywhere else in the world at

test level.