Logo on Hundred ball is blamed for making batting too hard

The logo on the Hundred ball is being blamed for making batting harder and lowering scores in this season’s competition. Players believe that the logo is contributing to the new ball swinging more.

Daniel Worrall’s extraordinary start to Thursday’s Hundred game at Lord’s — when he did not concede a run from the first 10 balls of the match — highlighted how new-ball bowlers are thriving. London Spirit bowler Worrall was able to generate prodigious swing and seam, leaving Welsh Fire opener Tom Kohler-Cadmore runless after the first 10 balls. Perhaps James Anderson retired too soon.

In the first 11 matches in this year’s men’s tournament, the average run rate has been 7.9, compared to 9.1 last year. The lack of big hitting is particularly notable because this year’s Indian Premier League witnessed a surge in run-scoring.

Players in the Hundred believe that this season’s batch of balls are swinging prodigiously, suggesting that there is an unusual amount of swing and seam movement. The Hundred’s logo being printed on the ball is considered to be a factor.

One senior player in the men’s competition told Telegraph Sport that the seam on the ball felt “bigger” and “like it’s thicker coated because of the Hundred branding”. He believes that the new ball is “moving around way more” compared to the different Kookaburra ball used in the Twenty20 Blast or other short-format competitions.

Heather Knight, the captain of London Spirit, said that bowlers get more assistance with balls in the Hundred than those used for other white-ball competitions around the world.

“I do think they swing for a bit longer,” Knight told Telegraph Sport. “I’m not sure why, but I’ve always felt the lacquer feels slightly different on the Hundred balls.”

One team official at a franchise said that the Hundred balls should be changed “for normal balls”. He said that it was “stupid that they are making life this hard for batters”.

The England & Wales Cricket Board discussed the balls informally on Monday. But there are no plans to change them mid-competition, with the ECB said to be unconcerned by the situation.

The balls used in this tournament are the same design as in the first three years of the competition. The balls, which are produced by Kookaburra, are a different batch for 2024. This batch could be more bowler-friendly, as sometimes happens in Test cricket, when the ball in particular seasons swings more.

“The players have mentioned the balls are doing so much more,” one top-order batsman told Telegraph Sport. He also said that the pitches in the competition have been a major factor in the relatively low run-rates seen so far in the men’s tournament.

Until Friday’s games, the average score batting first was just 125 in this season’s men’s Hundred, with three sides failing to reach 100. Scores have been higher in the women’s competition, with the side batting first reaching an average of 133.

As part of the double headers used in the Hundred, all women’s matches are played prior to men’s games. Many players believe that pitches become harder to bat on when they are re-used.

Competition designed to empower bowlers

When the Hundred was created, one of the justifications for the new changes — which sees sets of five balls, rather than overs of six, and allows bowlers to bowl 10 balls consecutively — was that it would empower bowlers. Examples like Worrall’s new-ball spell illustrate that bowlers are more prominent in the Hundred than many rival competitions.

“The pace of the game is different — you can’t just ‘tee off’, which is good,” said a senior player in the men’s competition. He also said that there had been some “c--- batting” with players struggling to readjust to more bowler-friendly conditions.

“It’s always done more in this competition,” said one international fast bowler. “The balls definitely do a little more early.”

Brett Elliot, group managing director at Kookaburu, said: “The balls have not changed from previous seasons, nor from their use in the recent World Cup or IPL. Climate and pitch conditions can have a significant impact on the performance of the ball, one of our primary goals when manufacturing is to ensure consistency across batches so the ball is not the variable factor in the game.”