Balls are having a moment. Usually they’re just … there. Nobody thinks about them much. Truth is, they’re usually treated poorly. Scuffed. Bashed. Rubbed the wrong way. Abused. Hit out of sight. Now they’re asserting themselves. A noun has become an adjective. Balls define people.
Take cricketers. Consider the men playing a Test match in Perth. This is a significant event in the Australian summer cricket season: the start of the highest level of red-ball games. Not to be confused with white-ball games, as featured recently in the World Cup. Look closely at the chaps on your TV screen: not all the players who starred in India have reappeared in Perth.
The colour of cricket balls prompts much discussion these days.Credit: Istock
Glenn Maxwell, for example, would love to play Tests but has been pigeon-holed as a white-ball man. Usman Khawaja is the opposite: indispensable as an opener against red balls in Perth; services not required in India. To further confuse things, Australia’s men play a pink-ball Test against the West Indies late in January.
That Test, at the Gabba in Brisbane, starts later in the day, with final sessions played at night. It is thus a hybrid of red- and white-ball games – hence a pink pill. Cricket tragics have declared this ball has unique characteristics, especially under lights. It is said to swing more, especially in the hands of an expert practitioner like Mitchell Starc. Best not to go too far down this path. Earnest discussion of swinging balls sounds awfully like a marketing plan for gentlemen’s shorts.
Attention paid to balls – and let’s not debate here the differences between the English Dukes used in the last Ashes series and Kookaburras sent down in Perth – has changed the way we look at players. Once they had specific roles. Batsman. Bowler. Wicket-keeper. All-rounder. Now they are filed under colours: red, white, pink. Alex Carey is deemed a better red-ball keeper than Josh Inglis, who supplanted him in the World Cup. But regardless of their roles, all players will gather around when a ball needs replacing and umpires produce a box of balls like Santa offering an assortment of Christmas baubles.
Between matches, many cricketers play golf. They would thus be aware of the recent intense debate about golf balls. This follows a decision made by the nawabs who govern golf to tinker with the technology surrounding golf balls so they don’t travel as far. Within a few years, all players, pros and hackers alike, will have to change their balls.
Golfers will be given a new handicap, with new balls that don’t travel as far.
In a game revolving around getting from tee to green in as few shots as possible, it seems counter-intuitive to dial things back so balls don’t go as far. Problem is, the best golfers – wielding clubs unrecognisable from those swung by Jan Stephenson and Peter Thomson decades ago – are now hitting balls out of sight. Bunkers and water traps pose no threat when balls soar overhead.
In 2002, only one pro golfer, American “Long” John Daly, hit the ball further than 275 metres. These days, over 90 manage it regularly. Courses have been rendered toothless. Not, however, for all those who play on public courses rather than at the Masters’ venue in Augusta, Georgia. They would be content with drives half as long as Daly’s, especially if they go straight. But by 2030 – a couple of years earlier for pros – their balls will have reduced buzz.
Red, white or pink, balls are having a moment in the sun
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15.12.2023
Balls are having a moment. Usually they’re just … there. Nobody thinks about them much. Truth is, they’re usually treated poorly. Scuffed. Bashed. Rubbed the wrong way. Abused. Hit out of sight. Now they’re asserting themselves. A noun has become an adjective. Balls define people.
Take cricketers. Consider the men playing a Test match in Perth. This is a significant event in the Australian summer cricket season: the start of the highest level of red-ball games. Not to be confused with white-ball games, as featured recently in the World Cup. Look closely at the chaps on your TV screen: not all the players who starred in India have reappeared in Perth.
The colour of cricket balls prompts much discussion these days.Credit: Istock
Glenn Maxwell, for example, would love to play Tests but has been pigeon-holed as a white-ball man. Usman Khawaja is........
© The Sydney Morning Herald
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