New balls won't swing contest: Sayers

Chadd Sayers, the most successful performer with the red Kookaburra ball in the first half of the current Sheffield Shield season, is unconvinced that the switch to the Dukes brand will be more beneficial to bowlers.

In a bid to arrest Australia’s poor Test match results in the UK where they have not won a series since 2001, Cricket Australia has decreed that the second half of this Shield summer starting tomorrow will feature the Dukes balls, as are used exclusively at home by their Ashes rivals.

The rationale being that the heavily lacquered, slightly smaller and lighter Dukes balls swing more pronouncedly and for longer in cooler, damper English conditions than do their Kookaburra counterparts on dry, flat Australian pitches.

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And the deficiencies in Australian batters suddenly forced to combat these alien projectiles might be best remedied by becoming more familiar with them in first-class match conditions here.

But Sayers, the South Australian who heads the Shield wicket-takers’ tally, was scarcely embracing the new weapon with the same level of enthusiasm that James Bond habitually displays when kitted out with the latest gizmo from Q Division.

"When you’re bowling with the Kooka and going pretty well as I did in the first half of the season, you don’t really want to change," Sayers said on the eve of the second-placed West End Redbacks’ Shield fixture against bottom-ranked Western Australia.

"It will be an experiment.

"It’s like anything, it’s like the pink ball you just take time to get used to it and with the Ashes tour coming up (in 2019) they obviously want to experiment with it over here and see if it does the same as in England.

"In English conditions they’re nice to bowl with, they swing around a bit and stay harder for much longer.

"It will be an experiment out here, but I’m sure it will do the same thing."

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According to Sayers, who was elevated to Australia’s Test squad for last year’s tour to New Zealand and during the recent home series against South Africa and Pakistan without getting a game, the difference is not so much the ball itself but its finish.

He believes bowlers will be working hard to get the thick coat of lacquer removed from the Dukes ball as quickly as possible, so they can start working on the leather beneath to enable the ball can reach its optimum state for swing bowling.

But he acknowledged that when the Dukes ball is new, with its hard exterior shell and slightly more pronounced seam, it should offer some assistance to fast bowlers and cause headaches for batters.

As has been the case for Australian teams in England for more than a decade.

"I would think the batters would be (more nervous than bowlers about the change)," he said.

"The potential to swing and to nip around for longer, and we know that batsmen can’t handle the swinging ball.

"But it’s a little bit inconsistent bowling with it in the nets.

"There’s lacquer on the Dukes ball that’s hard to get off, and if you can’t get it off you can’t shine it.

"Whereas the Kookaburra there’s no lacquer on it, so it’s easier to shine.

"I think once you get that lacquer off it starts to swing a bit more and you can actually shine the ball."

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As England’s pace bowlers demonstrated so effectively in the famous 2005 Ashes series, the Dukes balls are also prone to pronounced reverse swing if maintained in the appropriate state.

But in citing the lush outfield and green wicket block at Gliderol Stadium where Sayers is hoping to get first use of the bowling conditions tomorrow, he doesn’t envisage the ball will become sufficiently scuffed to start reversing.

Unless it somehow scrapes repeatedly along the concrete gutters that ring the playing perimeter, as happened during last year’s Shield final at the ground.

However, the 29-year-old seamer is more excited about the prospect of returning to top-level cricket having spent the past two months virtually idle save for being a net bowler to his Test squad teammates.

Having missed the starting XI in a line-ball call with spinner Nathan Lyon an hour before the coin toss for the day-night Gabba Test against Pakistan, Sayers essentially became a spectator.

With Adelaide’s Premier Cricket competition in recess over Christmas and New Year and remarkably without a Big Bash League deal yet again, Sayers has kept up his fitness and skill levels through training sessions alone.

He admits that being part of the national Test squad’s set-up has been hugely beneficial to his development as a bowler, but adds that the lack of competitive cricket since his most recent Shield game in early December last year has been trying.

"It is very annoying, I think it’s been two months since I’ve played a first-class game," he said today.

"It was obviously good to be over with the Australian squad and training, but there’s nothing like playing.

"It’s always exciting to be around the Australian group and knowing you’re in the mix of the 12 that’s playing.

"But on the other side it’s also frustrating not getting picked.

"I felt like I was at the top of my game when I got included in the squad, so it was frustrating as well."

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Despite being in his 30th year and with the recently revamped National Selection Panel clearly showing its preference for younger players in all forms of the game, Sayers does not believe his window for a Test call-up has closed just yet.

But he did echo the thoughts of Victoria’s stand-in captain and reigning Domestic Player of the Year Cameron White who suggested today that recent selections had given the national team the appearance of a "development" outfit.

White did not single out any specific selections, but much has been made of the decision to draft uncapped Queenslander Sam Heazlett into the squad for the current Chappell-Hadlee Trophy series in New Zealand despite him not having played a 50-over match for his state.

When asked about White’s comments today, Sayers made it clear that he had also detected a change in selection philosophy.

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"I guess when you pick a player who hasn’t played in a one-day domestic game it is a bit of a hunch," Sayers said.

"But they (selectors) obviously see potential in those kids and hopefully they do well when they get picked.

"He (White) has dominated the competition for the last couple of years, and I can tell you who I’d rather be bowling to."