Kangarucci Cricket and Kookaburra’s battle of the balls

“It’s just not cricket” is a catchphrase for things not in the spirit of fair play. Recent developments in the Australian cricket ball market bring it to mind.

Balls are a major part of local cricket club costs, feeding into player membership fees. The higher the fees, the fewer people can afford to play, putting the future of club cricket at risk.

One company, A. G. Thompson – which makes the Kookaburra ball – has an effective stranglehold on the market. It’s playing hardball against fledgling Sydney company Kangarucci Cricket. Kookaburra has the Australian cricket ball business so tightly sewn up, according to Kangarucci, other brands can’t get a fair go.

Not content with overwhelming market dominance, Kookaburra issued a legal ultimatum to Kangarucci Cricket through legal firm Griffith Hack in February, accusing it of “unauthorised use of Kookaburra intellectual property”.

The nub of Kookaburra’s complaint is Kangarucci Cricket’s use of the word “turf” in the name of some of its ball lines. Kookaburra has trademarked the term, though it is used by other cricket ball brands, including the English Dukes ball that is dominant in the northern hemisphere.

The ultimatum included the demand “to destroy or deliver up (at your cost)” Kangarucci Cricket balls featuring the word “turf” within 14 days of receipt of the letter.

In response, Kangarucci Cricket asked Griffith Hack whether its client was taking similar action against “any other much larger and more established competitors … actively promoting and selling products” that also incorporated the word. “If not, then why hasn’t that occurred?” the small company asked. In other words, why single out Kangarucci?

It pointed to the Dukes Turf Master ball and Steeden Turf ball marketed in Australia through Greg Chappell Sports, and the Platypus Special Turf ball marketed through Western Sports Centre.

Similar questions posed by The Saturday Paper have seemingly stumped Kookaburra, which did not respond to queries.

Why is behemoth Kookaburra hunting baby Kangarucci Cricket, and does it matter?

Kookaburra was founded in Melbourne by saddle and harness maker A. G. Thompson in 1890. It produces more than 650,000 cricket and hockey balls a year and sells them in 50 countries.

Kangarucci Cricket is a start-up consisting of four partners with aspirations to make good cricket balls at a better price for the local club market. The Kangarucci quartet are utterly devoted to, and deeply concerned about, the continuing viability of club cricket in Australia.

Co-founder Steve Small, 69, started playing at the age of eight for St Jerome’s in Punchbowl, and ended up playing 90 first-class games for New South Wales and Tasmania. To Small, community cricket is the game’s lifeblood and if it doesn’t thrive, Australian cricket overall won’t either.

Fellow founder Brian Breakspear and chief executive Jason McLean are both long-time club cricketers and coaches. Partner Arslan Farooq comes from a cricket ball manufacturing family three generations deep.

Their motivation came from a belief that monopoly profits from cricket ball sales are costing community clubs $4 million to $5 million a year – money that could be spent promoting grassroots participation if there were a quality, better-priced alternative. So they spent five years developing one. Moreover, the Kangarucci Cricket ball is the only one whose Cricket Australia accreditation is current.

Without a big additional investment in community cricket, some fear the game will drift into a decline in Australia similar to that of the once-mighty game of rugby union.

That fear is driving the company’s “Kangarucci is the competition cricket needs” campaign, which has sent more than 1800 sample balls to 80 clubs and associations since August last year, to put them through their paces and get feedback.

“Even though we’re very small, we’ve done a good job of building awareness of the Kangarucci brand and the craftsmanship and quality of our balls,” McLean says.

Kookaburra’s legal ultimatum suggests the company sees its tiny rival as a realistic threat.

While it is “a compliment to our ball quality and the resulting goodwill in the marketplace”, in McLean’s view, it’s also another example of how Kookaburra acts to “keep their monopolistic status quo”.    

So Kangarucci Cricket is on a mission. If economic theory means anything, a lean company producing a high-quality, cost-competitive product logically should make great strides in the marketplace.

The competition policy debate running hot in Australia focuses on merger reform, with a view to reducing further concentration of market power. The supermarket duopoly and its consequences for suppliers (low prices) and customers (high prices) gets particular attention.

So many market sectors have the same profile.

More than a decade ago, business reporter Ian Verrender characterised Australia as a “Noah’s ark” economy: “There’s a couple of airlines, a pair of brewers, two steel makers, a handful of banks that would do almost anything to cosy down to two and, of course, our two big retailers.”

That poses a big problem for new entrants and small players. Can they get a toehold, survive and thrive to help diversify the economy and boost efficiency? Or do they get snuffed out at birth by dominant existing players leaning into anti-competitive practices?

Kangarucci Cricket’s fate in the Australian cricket ball market is a microcosm of the issue.

Anti-competitive practices, including misuse of market power, are often opaque and difficult to prove – which makes it easy to get away with such behaviour.

The consequence is higher prices for consumers, excess profits for dominant companies and inefficient allocation of resources across the economy.

Slow uptake of Kangarucci Cricket’s highly rated yet more economical offering is a problem for cricket as well as for the company, it says, because grassroots clubs could save a lot of money by switching brands.

Kangarucci Cricket is so confident of that, its website offers a savings comparison calculator matching the relevant ball from its range against competitors.

Nor is it a matter of compromising on quality in exchange for the lower price, the makers say. Those six seams of stitches on the circumference of cricket balls? Only two of the six hold a Kookaburra ball together. In contrast, as is the case with England’s Dukes ball, all six seams hold a Kangarucci Cricket ball together, improving its durability and ability to hold its shape after repeated pounding.

The value proposition – cheaper and more durable – is compelling, Kangarucci Cricket’s McLean says. Why then are they not making market inroads?

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) in principle wants more competition across the economy.

“We encourage all businesses, clubs or other organisations to regularly tender for their suppliers to test the market and ensure they get a competitive deal in terms of the price and quality of the product or service they are seeking to purchase,” an ACCC spokesperson told The Saturday Paper.

The Kangarucci Cricket side’s view is that long-term club contracts for the purchase of Kookaburra balls, combined with “reward” sponsorship deals from Kookaburra for buying those balls, has psychologically locked clubs into buying them. An additional hurdle, they say, is the lack of an open, transparent tender system.

Cricket Australia hasn’t publicly taken much of an interest in the issue so far but, if it wants to make club cricket more accessible, then the cost of equipment might be one area in which it could become a lot more active.