Ottis Gibson blasts cricket's law-makers and says he wasn't consulted over changes

“The ECB is trying to promote positive cricket, and then you give people more points for a draw,” he said. “It doesn’t make sense to me. I think it’s ridiculous, to be honest. It doesn’t encourage attacking cricket.

“Look, the ECB runs the game, and with the Kookaburra ball (used in the first two Championship rounds) and the points system… I don’t know who they’re speaking to about some of these things, but they certainly didn’t speak to me on that. I didn’t know anything about it until the directive came out.

“And then they say that they want fast bowlers, they want guys bowling above 85mph, but you’re sort of isolating 95 per cent of the people that are playing because there’s not many fast bowlers playing that can bowl above 85, especially on the pitches that we’ve seen.

“So you’re putting yourself in a position where you’re choosing from a very small pool of people (for international cricket).”

Gibson was speaking ahead of Yorkshire’s match against Middlesex at Lord’s on Friday, when the Dukes ball will be back after the Kookaburra trial.

The Kookaburra - with its less pronounced seam and propensity to go soft earlier - is designed to show how difficult it is to bowl in international cricket and, consequently, raise standards.

“We’ll be very happy to see the Dukes ball at Lord’s, for sure,” said Gibson. “The Kookaburra doesn’t help when the pitches are flat, and it becomes a new-ball game then. Once the hardness goes out of the ball and the batsman is intent on not getting out, it’s a very sort of attritional situation. The Kookaburra is not going to give you much assistance after maybe 20/30 overs.”

Yorkshire have rested pace bowler Matt Milnes. Squad: Bean, Brook, Coad, Edwards, Fisher, Hill, Lyth, Masood (captain), Moriarty, Revis, Root, Tattersall, Thompson.