Founded in 1760, Dukes Cricket Balls is preparing to dispatch 600 balls for trial by Cricket Australia – the second test of this kind in a year.

The Kookaburra ball, which has been used exclusively in Test match cricket in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa since 1946, is being challenged by this small, heritage company based in east London.

According to the Indian-born owner, Dilip Jajodia, two years ago top level umpires in Australia voiced concerns about the durability of the machine-stitched Kookaburra ball and started to talk with other potential manufacturers.

“I dispatched 50 dozen balls on request and then held my breath. Finally, when visiting last February I was told that after 81 overs of top-class cricket – not nets – the balls still looked incredible,” said Mr Jajodia who acquired the Dukes brand from British sports equipment manufacturer Gray Nicolls in 1987.

“Greg Chappell was in the Cricket Australia offices at the time and said our balls had been going well,” added the 69-year-old, who has been described as the Indian man who makes English bowlers swing.

The export exercise, on the same scale, is now to be repeated this spring and will be followed up with a site visit from the Cricket Australia Umpire Manager.

A Kookaburra spokesman was unavailable to comment.

The Dukes brand produces hundreds of thousands of hand-stitched balls every year, which are used in England at Test level and by the majority of the top flight county sides. It now also supplies the West Indies.

The hand-stitched Dukes ball and machine-stitched Kookaburra compete head to head on the world stage, but Mr Jajodia is convinced his “swinging” and “seaming” variety is becoming more widely recognised as the higher quality product.

Varying conditions and different balls always play a part in the punditry surrounding an Ashes Test, but the attributes of the Dukes ball versus the Kookaburra has been more hotly debated than ever over the course of the 5-0 whitewash that finished yesterday, seeing the urn won back by the 11 men representing Australia in their baggy green caps.

Mitchell Johnson, the Australian fast bowler and player of the series, ripped through England’s batting line-up on the final day of the fifth Ashes Test match with a Kookaburra turf cricket ball, as the visitors lost seven wickets in just 53 minutes. Whereas England’s medium-fast bowler, Jimmy Anderson, appears to have missed the Dukes ball, which he is used to playing with.

Other Kookaburra products are also in the spotlight after the Kookaburra bat of England’s opening batter, Michael Carberry, broke yesterday.

Around 95 per cent of all Dukes balls are hand-stitched – a lost art in both England and Australia but a labour skill still practised in India and Pakistan.

“The hand-stitched concept is the very heart of the cricket ball industry – it’s an artistry and I’m determined to convert the world and convince cricket playing nations of its importance,” said Mr Jajodia.

Dukes balls – first made 250 years ago by the Duke of Penshurst – have been gradually cutting into the Australian market over the past year, of which Kookaburra holds 95per cent market share.

The English balls were used by Michael Clarke’s team in pre-Ashes preparation ahead of their trip to the UK last summer, as well as being trialled by Australia’s Future’s League and in its under-17s and under-19s national competitions.

Kookaburra also has a presence in the UK following its acquisition of British brand Readers. “The Australians are very protective of their balls, which are used throughout the country. I have been knocking on the door for years but they just walked in a grabbed market share in the UK by buying Readers,” said Mr Jajodia.

The former pension fund manager sources the best raw materials, including cow’s leather from a tannery in Chesterfield.

The balls are then stitched in factories near Lahore in Pakistan by the skilled hands of 500 Dukes workers, before being flown back over to east London to be shaped, polished, treated, stamped and rigorously checked by the core team, which includes Mr Jajodia’s son, Sunil, 35, and daughter Neena, 39.

One variety of Dukes ball is tailor-made for the swinging, seaming English pitches of Lord’s or the Durham Emirates Stadium, and another for the dry, abrasive wickets of Australia’s Melbourne Cricket Ground or the Wacca at Perth.

“We treat the leather differently to make the balls for the Southern Hemisphere more hard wearing, with an anti scuff finish,” he explained.

A hand-stitched ball has six rows of stitching, Mr Jajodia explained. But instead of the outer two seams being purely decorative as, on a machine stitched ball, all six rows hold the cork ball together, creating a tension so that when the ball hits the deck it moves more and holds its shape better.

“It moulds into the palm of the bowler’s hand,” he said, “hence it is loved by bowlers such as Jimmy Anderson.”

Overseas players such as former Australian demon bowler Glen McGrath, who terrorised county batsman with the Dukes ball when playing for Worcestershire, have also been vocal about the attributes of a hand-stitched ball over the years, Mr Jajodia claimed.

Kookaburra, founded in Australia in 1890 by an English saddle maker, has the international scene sewn up – with the International Cricket Council using a white Kookaburra ball for the World Cup.
But Mr Jajodia pointed out that the ball gets softer quicker and therefore the new ball is now taken earlier in a 50-overs match. “They’ve actually changed the rules of the game to accommodate the Kookaburra,” he said. “They have a lot of muscle.”

Australian retailers and stockists have also been monopolised by Kookaburra contracts, he added, meaning Dukes have not even managed to offer demonstrations.

“But now Cricket Australia is testing our balls, word is getting around that they may be an alternative and even the big Australian public schools are starting to place orders with us such as internationally renowned Brisbane Grammar School.”

Dukes balls range in price from £10 to £100 for a Test match quality ball, but Mr Jajodia said costs do not vary from country to country – the only fluctuation is via the exchange rate.
Belonging to a business family from the Marwar region of Rajasthan, the financier-turned-entrepreneur came to England to study accountancy more than 50 years ago with £5 in his pocket. After a stint in the City, he bought sports equipment manufacturer Morrant off the shelf, before purchasing Dukes.

Alongside cricket balls, Morrant makes the ultra light pads worn by India cricket captain MS Dhoni and the recently retired Sachin Tandulka, the world’s leading run scorer.

With such high-profile supporters Mr Jajodia plans to set up a unit in South India and tap into the lucrative Indian cricket market. But he does not want to be the biggest cricket ball company on the planet – “I just want to make the best ones,” he said.

A cricket lover and bowler, Mr Jajodia hung up his whites well into his 60s, but in terms of international expansion for the Dukes brand, it is only the beginning of his next innings.

This article first appeared in The Telegraph.