What's inside a cricket ball?

 Last time we found out what a netball looks like inside and we wondered what the cricket ball would look like. Here's a small sample of our conversation - thanks, Nicole!

Do you think this ball is going to be the same inside as the netball was?
No - its going to be made out of wood because wood is hard.
Metal
There might be a hard ball inside there - the cricket ball might be solid

When you cut it through the middle it might just break open. 
Does it bounce? Yes… 
It might have stitching inside it…
Do you think there will be some empty space inside this ball? Some said no and some said yes. 

So Carolyn started sawing! The saw blade became very warm and the inside had a smoky smell!
So we thought maybe there was wood in there, just like our guess.
Then half came off and look what we saw!

We could pull the middle "ball" out:

There was plastic inside the red outside part. Then we cut the middle ball in half to see if anything was in there:

No - all wood (Carolyn told us it was cork, which helped it be a little bit bouncy!) all the way through.
It was crumbly. Liwan said that it needed the plastic to stop it from going soggy.
Ryley said it "protected it" - good thinking, girls!

I wonder what might be inside a ball like this? Perhaps you and your family could find out!