Did Changing the Ball Manufacturer Impact the Sporting Contest in English Cricket

The England and Wales Cricket Board implemented a policy to use the Kookaburra ball in the 2023 and 2024 English county cricket season. The policy’s objective was to provide English players with experience using this unfamiliar ball to improve the national team’s performance in the 2025/26 Ashes series. As this equipment change may have impacted the domestic sporting contest, this paper investigates the repercussions. Using fixture data from 2015 to 2024 (excluding the COVID-hit seasons), regression analysis shows that the Kookaburra policy had no impact on the total number of runs or wickets attained, and there is only weak evidence that it created competitive imbalance between bat and ball. However, the policy did increase the probability that a match would end in a draw. The findings inform contest designers to be cautious when introducing equipment changes, and for the England and Wales Cricket Board, they should further extend its trial of the Kookaburra ball.