Brendon McCullum did not reach for excuses after England’s 16-run defeat by Sri Lanka at Headingley on 24 September. He reached for the ball. “The game is slightly different now,” England’s head coach said. “The ball is playing a massive part.”
The numbers back him. Chasing 322 after Kusal Mendis’s 121, England closed on 305 for nine, with Dunith Wellalage taking three for 49 — undone in the phase of the innings that used to belong to them. Fifteen months after the most consequential tweak to one-day cricket’s playing conditions in a decade, the death overs are no longer a batting formality.
One ball, 16 overs, a deliberate rebalancing
From 2 July 2025, starting with Sri Lanka’s home series against Bangladesh, the International Cricket Council restricted the use of two new balls in men’s ODIs to the first 34 overs. From over 35, the fielding captain selects one of the two and bowls it from both ends for the remaining 96 deliveries. If a match is reduced to 25 overs or fewer per side, only one ball is used at all.
The two-ball rule, in force since 2011, had quietly deleted a skill from the format. Neither ball was ever more than about 25 overs old by the end of an innings, so neither was ever scuffed enough to reverse. Bowlers were asked to defend totals of 350 with equipment that refused to misbehave. The ICC said the amendment was intended to “readdress the balance between bat and ball”. In effect, it has given the white ball back its middle age — 16 overs in which the seam softens, one side roughens and the ball starts to move again.
The bowlers cashing in
Since the change, half of all full-length deliveries from pace bowlers in the final 10 overs have swung more than one degree, up from 35% in the 18 months beforehand. The economy rate in the last five overs has dropped from 8.40 to 7.95. The pace bowling average has fallen from 19.2 to 18.3. Those are not cosmetic shifts across a format where a single run per over decides series.
Individual gains are starker:
- Alzarri Joseph is getting 84% more swing, his average down from 24.1 to 17.4
- Lungi Ngidi’s movement is up 63.3%, his average down to 13
- Jofra Archer is extracting 37% more movement, averaging 0.97 degrees
- Shaheen Shah Afridi is averaging 1.3 degrees of swing since the rule changed
Conditions dictate how much. In England the ball is swinging 63% more at the death than before July 2025, the largest jump anywhere. Bangladesh has seen a 33% increase, with Sri Lanka and Pakistan also producing significantly more late movement. The gains have been smaller in Australia and South Africa.
England, the side that spent a decade building its white-ball identity on batting depth, have become one of the clearest beneficiaries with the ball. Their bowling average in the final 10 overs has improved from 36.76 to 20.91, their economy rate from 9.78 to 7.53. The flipside is that their batters must now solve the same problem at the other end — and at Headingley they could not.
What it means from here
The immediate test is in Pakistan. England join the three-team ODI series in Rawalpindi against the hosts on Monday, 20 October, two days after Pakistan beat Sri Lanka by 37 runs in the opening match, defending 305 against a reply of 268. Dry, abrasive subcontinental squares are exactly where a 35-over-old ball becomes a weapon, and the seven-match tournament runs to a final on 31 October.
There is an irony waiting at the end of the cycle. The 2027 World Cup, from 2 October to 21 November, will be staged across 12 venues in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia — and South Africa is one of the two countries where the extra late swing has been least pronounced. The rule change may yet have less influence on the tournament it was designed to improve than on the bilateral cricket leading into it.
Selection logic is already moving. A fourth seamer who can reverse the ball is worth more than a sixth batter who cannot get it off the square against one. Batters are recalculating, treating overs 35 to 45 as a phase to be negotiated rather than attacked. Scores of 300 mean more than they did two years ago, and a chase of 320 is no longer the near-certainty the previous decade made it look. For a format repeatedly written off as predictable, one administrative sentence has restored the oldest tension in the game.
Sports journalist and editor at SportsPortal.net. Covers cricket, football, Formula 1, tennis, and basketball with a focus on how global sports connect with Pakistani audiences. Follows the PSL, Pakistan national cricket team, Premier League, and major international tournaments. Has reported on sports for digital audiences since 2021.
1037 articles published
