Australia's bowlers are "licking their lips" at the prospect of using a more bowler-friendly ball after the England board requested Dukes produce a different batch for the Ashes.
The England and Wales Cricket Board have confirmed they are reverting to the specification used for their past two Test seasons, which have a more prominent seam than the balls seen at the start of this year's County Championship.
A prouder seam helps the quicks by facilitating sideways movement off the pitch, which has brought many an Australian batting line-up unstuck since their last series win in England in 2001.
While the ECB say the change is to ensure a fairer contest between bat and ball, they readily admit the move will enhance star seamer James Anderson's chances of continuing his success at home against Australia.
It does not bode well for Australia's batting line-up, which has been tormented by Anderson and Stuart Broad over the past decade in England's seam-friendly conditions – most notably four years ago when they were skittled for 60 at Trent Bridge.
Broad, Anderson and England captain Joe Root were all consulted over the change. The ECB have ordered between 500-600 balls at a total cost of about $67,000. It will be money well spent if it can help engineer Australian batting collapses and lead to a handover of the urn.
However, in Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc and perhaps James Pattinson, the Australians are quietly confident they have the pace artillery for the move to backfire on the English.
Australia's most successful finger-spinner, Nathan Lyon, believes a more exposed seam could also help him.
I know our quicks will be licking their lips at it. Should be a good challenge for them.
Nathan Lyon
"I'm pretty excited, pretty happy they've got the seam there. Hopefully I can use it for my benefit," Lyon said in an appearance for Kayo, who are streaming every game of the World Cup.
"I know our quicks will be licking their lips at it. Should be a good challenge for them.
"To be honest, that's part of the challenge of playing international cricket, part of the challenge of playing in England facing those conditions and with their ball.
"I think it's going to be one helluva series, I'm that excited. It's a great opportunity for the Australian cricket side to retain the Ashes."
Glenn Maxwell, who recently finished a stint with county side Lancashire and spent time facing Anderson in the nets, said Australia's expected pace attack could also benefit from the change.
"We have a pretty good attack ourselves," he said.
The ECB had changed the ball used for this year's county competition what batting great Alastair Cook described last season as one of the most difficult for batting he could remember.
But after assessing the results from the start of the 2019 season, the ECB was worried the results had tilted too far in favour of the batsmen. Ten of 15 matches this year have produced a score above 400 compared to only four of 14 after the same number of rounds in 2018.
The ECB say the Ashes decision was not made to maximise home ground advantage but to produce a more competitive contest.
"People will say that, but that's why we want to be on the front foot. We didn't want to appear as though we were doing this underhandedly," the ECB's managing director of men's cricket, Ashley Giles, said.
"This is not about having two-day games.
"This is honestly about having a fair contest. My concern was this [current] ball would make it too batting-friendly on good Test wickets in the middle of the summer. That was the primary reason."
Giles acknowledged the move could also help Australia.
"The Aussies are quite handy themselves," Giles said.
"There are elements of risk to it because we are choosing to go with this ball and they have a formidable bowling attack. Clearly, Jimmy Anderson is one of our best weapons, so we want to bring him into the game. We just want to be up front and honest."
Maxwell said it was not so much swing that could be an issue for batsmen but rather when the ball seamed off the pitch.
"If it swings more, it doesn't really affect things too much. You just and play miss. It's more when the ball seams off the wicket or if it wobbles," he said.
"I think the way the Aussie Duke has played, or the West Indies Duke that we have played with in Australia, hasn't swung so far. Guys were able to line it up and get a good read of it. It swung conventionally most of the time. It didn't really reverse."
https://www.theage.com.au/sport/cri...regret-ashes-ball-change-20190509-p51lnn.html
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