Kyle Jamieson wary of expecting too much from Dukes ball in England

New Zealand allrounder Kyle Jamieson is wary of expecting too much assistance from the Dukes ball on New Zealand's tour of England, saying that it could "hurt" their team's chances if their pacers get carried away by chasing its fabled swing too much.

"You don't want to start trying to move the ball two sets of stumps and then get caught on the bounce," Jamieson said in a media interaction. "We've found favourable conditions in New Zealand at times, albeit not with the Dukes ball, and we are mindful of the fact that if you start searching too much, you can get hurt a little bit."

The New Zealand players who were not at the IPL had trained with the Dukes ball before leaving for England. Jamieson too, it turns out, had Dukes balls in his kit bag at the IPL but eventually didn't get the chance to train with them.

"He [Shane Jurgensen, the New Zealand bowling coach] hid those two Duke balls in my bag but I didn't get a chance to use them. There's a lot of talk around how much the Dukes ball can move but it also doesn't necessarily move all the time and it can take a while for it to start going.

"I'm certainly excited by the chance of it moving around little bit. The part of the next few days [will be] to gauge around what the ball feels like and how much it's going to move. We've seen in previous English summers the likes of [Stuart] Broad using the scrambled seam or wobbled seam ball. We'll try and play around that and gauge the effective way to operate."

Jamieson is up for opening the bowling if given the chance, but acknowledges that there are more established pacers in the line-up. One of those, Trent Boult, could miss the two Tests against England, but New Zealand also have the experienced Tim Southee and Neil Wagner, as well as the likes of Colin de Grandhomme, Matt Henry, Doug Bracewell and Jacob Duffy in the squad.

"I've done it in domestic cricket, and it's certainly something that I'd like to do if the chance came up," Jamieson said. "Obviously you've got two of New Zealand's greats with Tim and Trent there, and rightly so they take the new ball, and I'm the third or fourth in line, but if the opportunity came to take the new ball, I'd certainly try and grab it with both hands."

Jamieson has impressed in Test cricket following his international debut against India early last year. He picked up nine wickets across two games in that series and followed it up with 11 scalps against West Indies in December 2020. He bettered that in the series against Pakistan, where he picked up 16 wickets across two games, including a 11-for in the second Test in Christchurch in January this year.

This will be the first time Jamieson will be bowling outside New Zealand in Test cricket, though. Bowling coach Jurgensen believes Jamieson can replicate that form in England.

"I have no doubt," Jurgensen said. "He has a really good opportunity to prepare. Once the guys coming from the IPL are cleared to get out [of quarantine] and start their preparation, hopefully, fingers crossed, they will have a really good run. If we were coming over here for one game, you would probably be a little bit worried about all the guys' preparation. But we are here, we have got two really important Tests against England and a World Test [Championship] final. So plenty of time for Kyle to specifically prepare for what's ahead on this tour."