Zorbing balls can be pretty expensive. Depending on quality and size they can be over $1000.
How about pachinko balls?
Looking online I see them available for much less. Is there a special ball used for the top tier games?
The most expensive I could find was $149 but most are much less - Kookaburra Turf Cricket Ball
There are many bowling balls that go for more than $200.
A higher grade ball is used as you go up the grades. Our 1st/2nd grade use by regulation balls costing $120+. Lower grades use a bit First class/Test would be using top of the range @ $150-200. The ball for all senior cricket has the same specifications.
Some of those cheaper examples are synthetic and not used for matchplay.
It’s a chicken & egg sorta thing.
They are constructed (hand stitched) so they can last 500+ pitches of which most hit the playing surface. And the wear of the ball is an essential component of the game.
Was watching a MBL fixture (Yankees v Blue Jays) where at one at bat, the ball was replaced 10 times. Be bloody expensive if they were using Test grade Kookaburras, Dukes or SGs.
But they last a long time.
Dr. Rodgers was on to something.
What happens in a cricket match if a ball goes into the spectator area? At a baseball game, the possibility (however small) of catching a foul or home run ball is part of the excitement.
My bad - I seemed to have been looking at a set of multiple balls. Individual balls are more like $60.
In which case cricket balls are not as expensive as the ball used by sports like volleyball or football (soccer) or American football. It’s hard to judge, the market for the official FIFA World Cup matchball probably means they are sold at a premium price. So I’m not sure the retail price reflects the cost of the ball.
Typically it gets thrown back onto the pitch. The condition of a cricket ball is very important to the play, and substituting a new ball would change the flow of the game. Apparently, if the ball is lost the teams and umps select a used ball that closely resembles the one that it will replace.
It’s part of the excitement at cricket too.
And if you luck out and get the glory of hanging onto one [google cricket crowd catches], to the applause of your peers, you throw it back.
That’s interesting. Can you please elaborate?
Just what I read online, but a quick summary until someone who actually knows cricket comes along.
The bowling of a cricket ball is heavily affected by the condition. Over the course of a long test match the ball gathers wear and tear that a bowler can take advantage of. This wear and tear takes time and throughout the match it will change. Swapping out a worn ball for a brand new one would impact the game in a way that swapping a baseball never could.
But sometimes balls are lost or can’t be recovered, so the umpires try to match the replacement as close as possible. I have no idea how that process is carried out.
Baseball (obviously) has a very different approach to how it treats its balls than cricket. The sport now strives to have the condition of a ball not affect play.
Much of this stems from a particular 1920 incident. Until then, baseballs were kept in play even when they got dirty or scuffed, and many pitchers specialized in doctoring the baseball – with dirt, tobacco juice, scuffs, etc. – to make it fly erratically, and make it harder for the batter to see clearly.
In 1920, Ray Chapman, a star shortstop for the Cleveland Indians, was batting in a game against the New York Yankees. It was late in the afternoon, the sunlight was getting dimmer, and Chapman was struck in the head by a pitch. This was decades before stadium lights and batting helmets became a thing, and onlookers say that Chapman never reacted to the pitch, in any effort to get out of the way; it seems likely that he never had a good look at it. He fell unconscious a few moments later, and died the next day.
On the heels of that tragedy, the major leagues changed their rules: they required umpires to replace dirty balls with new, white ones, and banned “spitballs” and other doctoring of the ball by pitchers.
So, as a result, balls get checked frequently by the umpires, and balls which have any scuffs or marks on them are removed from play; used balls which are no longer suitable for use in a game get used for batting and fielding practice. Plus, any batted ball (foul or fair) which winds up in the stands is considered to be a souvenir for a fan, and thus, is also permanently out of play. MLB teams are required to have 156 new baseballs ready for use for every game, though not all of them will necessarily get used during that game; estimates are that somewhere between 96 to 120 balls are used in any given game. For what it’s worth, it appears that MLB teams pay about $6 or $7 per ball (which they buy in bulk from Rawlings), and it’s estimated that the league spends about $10 million a year on game balls.
A new cricket ball is hard, shiny and symmetrical with a prominent seam.
Note: a cricket ball is used straight out of the packet, the varnish and shine is cherished and are not rubbed off with mud prior to play.
So as play proceeds these characters change at various speeds based on the game conditions.
There are significant exceptions (ie reverse swing and spin) but generally the bowling team prefers a new ball because it moves through the air and off the pitch quicker, bounces more, will move laterally (swing/slide) in the air more, and moves laterally off the pitch more (seam). Batters prefer a hard ball which bounces evenly and produces negligible lateral swing or seam movement.
The match ball can be replaced if it is lost, which is rare in higher grades, or it gets out of shape.
If a ball is hit into the stands and impacts say a concrete surface and comes back roughed up with a couple of dings, then the umpire will cut off any loose bits and play continues.
However, if the fielding team claim the ball has gone out of shape the umpires will test it using two gauges representing the min and max allowed dimensions. Note, the ball does not need to be round or symmetrical. The ball must pass through the max ring and not the min ring. The main reasons why a ball would fail are the cork core has gone out of shape, the stitching has failed or the ball has got wet and swollen.
If it fails the gauge test, then the umpires call for a replacement. They are presented with (in Test cricket) a dozen balls used in previous games of similar duration in terms of number of overs used. Each is labelled with the score (overs, runs) taken with it. The umpires select one nearest the condition of the old ball in terms of shine and seam. It certainly will be more symmetrical than the old one, and probably harder.
They show it to the batters to confirm the change. Rules have varied but currently the batters cannot object to the ball being changed, nor which new ball has been selected. They usually don’t care. The umpires then give the new ball to the fielding captain to resume play. The fielding side has never been able to object to the selected new ball. (unless it also goes out of shape)
A change of ball is usually of some minor advantage for the bowling side; often simply morale, the action indicating that nothing is going their way. Maybe a different ball will attract the approval of the gods of cricket, who are capricious bastards. There are odd occasions when the replacement ball behaves materially differently.
Whatever it’s condition the bowling side will not call for the ball to be changed if the old ball is swinging or seaming/spinning significantly and wickets are falling. The batting team cannot ask for the ball to be replaced … because usually it’s the batting which has knocked the ball out of shape.
A change of ball is not considered to be a material disadvantage to the batting team. A harder, rounder ball will probably perform more consistently. A harder ball can be hit harder and runs further off the bat. Further, the bowling team has also probably conceded any chance they could get the replacement ball to reverse swing.
Cheapest - match grade air gun pellets. They cost something like 5-10 cents a piece.
Knockerballs: I don’t know what these balls would cost, but the insurance and medical bills alone would be prohibitive.
Ladies, this how the combination of testosterone and alcohol impacts the ascent of man.
Until relatively recently (last few decades) a pitcher would cherish a ball that had any scuff or other disfigurement that got past the umpire, because they could use that scuff to their advantage. Nowadays most pitchers want pristine baseballs and will request a change of ball if they detect any disfigurement.
Balls disposed of in this way are authenticated and sold as “game-used” memorabilia. As are broken bats, used rosin bags, bases (replaced every three innings, dirty or not). I haven’t heard of used gum being authenticated and sold…yet.
Balls hit into the stands can also be authenticated if the stadium staff can identify the ball and person who caught it with certainty.
Similar ball for human bowling - Zorb, seem to run $500-$1000
Are baseballs still wiped with a special mud that comes from the New Jersey side of the Delaware River? How do umpires tell if a dirty ball is the special mud or dirt from the playing surface? You don’t hear much about this.
Yes; part of what the umpiring team does before each game is rub each new ball down with that mud.
As I understand it, after the rubbing, the ball doesn’t look “dirty,” per se, so much as not shiny and not brand-new; the mud helps make the ball less slippery. The color is a little darker, but the “dirt” is pretty uniform across the ball’s surface, as shown in this comparative picture.
Dirt or scuffs from play would be on top of that, and wouldn’t be uniform across the ball; that’s what the umpires are looking for when they examine a ball to see if they need to remove a given ball from play.
