LAHORE: Failure of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) to make available Kookaburra balls to players in the ongoing first-class domestic cricket may result in poor performance of the Pakistan team in the upcoming India series.

Earlier, PCB’s coordination committee took the decision of using the Australia-made balls having received a good number of complaints from participating teams of the ongoing President’s Trophy about poor quality of the locally-made balls.

However, the PCB has not implemented the decision until now prompting players to use substandard balls in the domestic season.

The reason behind importance of non-availability of Kookaburra ball at this particular time period is that the said ball is used throughout the world in ODIs and Twenty20 Internationals besides the fact that India and Pakistan teams will play with the same ball in their upcoming series comprising three One-dayers and two T20s.

Despite all the significance of the Kookaburra ball, the PCB has so far failed to make available the ball in question to players participating in the domestic season.

Moreover, Dawn has learnt that all departmental teams, competing in the President’s Trophy, have refused to purchase the Kookaburra balls citing reason that it is costly.

“As its cost is high and we have already got approved our budget according to the cost of local balls, it is not possible to get more budget under this head. And if it is PCB’s decision to use the Kookaburra balls, it should provide the balls at the earliest,” an official of departmental teams told Dawn on condition of anonymity.

The official further said: “It is now duty of the PCB to immediately import standard balls from India in good quantity as soon as possible since boys will have to play with the Australia-made balls.”

Meanwhile, Dawn has also learnt that the PCB is considering a proposal to close matches of the President’s Trophy for some time to start the national T20 tournament which will be more helpful in selecting the squad for the India tour as compared to four-day matches of the President’s Trophy.

Though the national T20 tournament will not be helpful to also select the best team for the ODIs, it is the only alternative available to select the team.

It is to be noted that since head coach Dav Whatmore is on leave, detailed procedure of team selection will be chalked out upon his return.