The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has formally abandoned its unpopular trial with the Kookaburra cricket ball. This ruling sets the stage for future County Championship. This announcement follows a meeting of the new “Professional Game Committee” (PGC). It can barely hide the glee of the cricket directors of the 18 first-class counties, who have long craved to bin the initiative since as far back as October.
The Kookaburra ball was introduced as a means for English players to acclimatise themselves to the conditions overseas. During the last three seasons, players have employed it in key rounds. It was piloted through two sets of matches in June 2023. As many fans and other members of the general public noticed, it was a marked departure from the hype—so much so that people accurately described it as “boring cricket.” Under this demonstration, the initial intention was to broaden its usage to four rounds in each 2024 and 2025.
The Kookaburra Cricket ball is not your father’s ball from England. Perhaps most interestingly, it is a machine-made single primarily used in Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. The ECB’s high-performance arm is now a partner and key supporter of the Kookaburra endeavor. Their response is that athletes should feel challenged to perform in a range of conditions.
Ed Barney, a representative from the ECB, stated, “We valued the Kookaburra ball. Has it achieved what we intended to? Yes, 100%.” He said that optimum bowling speeds with the Kookaburra would be around 85 mph. Most interestingly, he pointed out that nearly 40% of the deliveries in these rounds were being delivered by spin bowlers.
Barney continued, “To be most effective with the Kookaburra ball you have to bowl at a higher speed. Has it drawn more spin bowling into the domestic game? Yes it has.” This is a clear marker for a change in bowling approach as batsmen adjusted to the change in the ball.
Despite these attempts, the collective jury on the effect of the Kookaburra ball has been pretty decidedly out. Critics said that instead of creating a more balanced and skilled pipeline to international cricket, it removed the competitive element from matches. Barney summarised this sentiment succinctly: “Ultimately the domestic game has a decision to make of whether it wants its core purpose to be about producing and developing players for international cricket or whether its core purpose is about a product that is competitive and appealing to the domestic context.”
As widely anticipated, the County Championship will revert to its pre-pandemic two-divisional structure. Division One will include ten teams, while Division Two will include eight teams, with each team playing 14 games in total. In addition to this, all 14 rounds of the first-class 2026 County Championship season will be played with balls made solely by Dukes.
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