The ECB insists that the English domestic season will get underway with the requisite number of Dukes balls available to the 18 counties, despite a reported supply-chain issue triggered by the ongoing conflict between the USA, Israel and Iran.

According to a report in the Daily Mail, the County Championship season – which gets underway on April 3 – will begin with roughly half the usual number of balls available to the counties. That figure, the report added, is usually between 4,000 and 5,000 per year for the professional game.

Dilip Jajodia, the owner of British Cricket Balls Ltd, which manufacture Dukes, told the Mail that freight rates from the subcontinent – where each ball is individually hand-stitched – had risen from $5 to $15 per kilogram in light of the conflict, and that English cricket was consequently facing a “major crisis”.

“We’ve got plenty of stuff in the factories in the subcontinent ready to go, but the airlines are not taking the freight, because there’s a logjam,” Jajodia explained.

Jajodia added that his company, based in Walthamstow, East London, would have to ration their supply to the counties by providing 50 percent of their usual stocks for the start of the season.

In response, the ECB explained that the board buys its supply of balls in bulk for cost reasons on behalf of the counties, and that the clubs had received the balls they require at this stage of the year as requested.

An ECB spokesperson said: “The Professional County Clubs have received the number of Dukes balls that they normally would ahead of the season.”

The board also insisted there would be no issue with England’s supply for their Men’s Test schedule, which begins on June 4, with the first of three Tests against New Zealand.