India and Australia are currently involved in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2024-25 where Jasprit Bumrah-led side got bundled out on just 150 runs in the first innings. While chasing Australia batters were also seen struggling and their side collapsed on just 104 runs. After the flop show by batters in Perth, fans and former cricketers started raising questions about the ball used in the Perth Test. Former Australia cricketers turned commentators Aaron Finch, Greg Blewett and James Brayshaw made big revelations about the ball used by Cricket Australia (CA) in Tests.
While doing commentary in Perth, former Australia cricketer James Brayshaw said that CA had changed the Kookaburra ball about four years ago as they put an extra lacquer on it to improve the stitching.
"That was given to us about the new Kookaburra ball they changed it about four years ago put the extra lacquer on it and improve the stitching and I think has been much improved since then but the batting averages in this country have dropped by 10 across the board since then in the four years so add that to some more souped-up pitches and battings become a lot more difficult" said Brayshaw.
Agreeing to Brayshaw's fact another cricketer Greg Blewett who is also the part of commentary panel said that since CA changed the ball, Australia's batting average has come down from 44 to 34.
"Yeah, I think it was from 2016 to 2020 the Australian batting average was 44 and then since the change of the kookaburra ball the sort of higher seam and the extra lacquer the average has come down to 34. Big change" said Blewett.
Aaron Finch explained to fans who are watching the ongoing Test between India and Australia that the extra lacquer layer of lacquer keeps the ball harder for longer because there was criticism earlier that the ball goes soft early.
"Yeah for the people at home what the extra lacquer layer of lacquer does on the ball is it just keeps it harder for a little bit longer so in the past there's been criticism that the ball goes soft really quick particularly on hard Australian surfaces so what it does now is with that extra layer it just is another layer of protection that shines up a lot better there's also something about it that helps it swing a little bit more consistently so yeah I think it's been really good since I've retired" said Finch.
Coming back to the match, while writing this copy India batters KL Rahul and Yashasvi Jaiswal are currently playing and they stitched a partnership of 50 runs. India is leading by 98 runs.
