Charlie Campbell­

Cricket is not renowned for embracing change. The introduction of the middle stump, overarm bowling and Kevin Pietersen were all greeted with great suspicion. But now the biggest change of the lot is proposed. Forget the Hundred: the traditional cricket tea is under threat. This summer, as a result of guidelines to tackle Covid-19, amateur cricketers were not able to use changing rooms, shine the ball with saliva or sweat, or enjoy the customary tea provided by the home club. Now the Sussex League is voting on whether to make tea voluntary next season for its 140 clubs. They will decide whether the home team should provide the cakes and sandwiches that players and officials have come to expect in the interval between innings.

The Prime Minister recently blamed the delay in the resumption of amateur cricket on the ball itself, calling it ‘a vector of disease’. Happily, tests have disproved this. Balls contaminated with Covid-19 showed no trace of it 30 seconds later — and recreational cricketers will be allowed to return to the field from this weekend. Much of the complexity of cricket comes from the interplay between wood, turf and the leather of the ball. Bats have changed greatly over the centuries, from curved to straight, from thick to thin and back to thick again, but the ball has remained much the same. A core of rubber and cork wrapped tightly with string, then encased in leather, stitched in a way to create a prominent seam running around the ball.