Alyssa Healy hopes the introduction of a Dukes ball for Ashes Tests can convey bowlers again into the sport and assist groups finish a run of attracts in ladies’s long-format matches.
Thursday’s Ashes opener at Trent Bridge will mark the primary time a contest between the 2 groups will use the Dukes, the ball lengthy used for males’s cricket in England.
Dukes balls are usually thought of extra pleasant for tempo bowlers, swinging for longer than Kookaburras do.
The final six ladies’s Test matches performed have all resulted in attracts, with a median of 25 wickets taken throughout these video games.
“In particular with the pace bowlers (it will help),” Healy mentioned.
“In Australia, with the Kookaburra, it goes soft and the wickets are pretty good for batting. Yes it gets hard to score sometimes, but it doesn’t offer a whole heap to the bowlers.
“The Dukes ball positively provides a bit bit to it: it’s a must to get it proper, and if you happen to miss it races to the boundary staying as laborious because it does.
“It brings our pacers into the contest for longer and makes things challenging for our spinners, which is a good thing.”
Healy is just not as assured, although, that an additional day will robotically repair the state of affairs, with a fifth day scheduled in a ladies’s Test for the primary time since 1992.
The greater situation, gamers consider, has been pitches.
“Five days could present a result, but there are draws in five-day men’s games as well. So we can’t be assured of that” Healy mentioned.
“Over time, if women’s Test cricket does become more popular on the calendar, I think there are certain nuances to our game that are different to the men.
“How you put together a wicket for a ladies’s Test could be a bit totally different.
“That will become clearer with more and more cricket on the calendar and how that might look to get a result.
“We’re not as large because the blokes, we do not create as many marks on the wicket, so we would have to have a artistic suppose on how we are able to make that occur.”
England captain Heather Knight backed Healy’s view on pitches, but also believed the Dukes ball could make a difference.
“The greatest problem in ladies’s Test is taking 20 wickets, and the Dukes ball ought to assist with that,” she mentioned.
“We performed with it towards South Africa final yr. It simply stays tougher for longer, it strikes for longer.”
Source: www.perthnow.com.au
