Pink Ball Day-Night Test Cricket

Overall, day-night Test cricket using a pink ball seems to have come to stay. 

- Vijayan Bala

The ICC is keen on introducing day-night Test cricket using a pink ball on a regular basis. The first such Test was played from 27 November 2015 between Australia and New Zealand at Adelaide. The match ended in three days with the pacemen dominating.

In fact, if the third umpire Nigel Llong had not incorrectly judged Australia’s Nathan Lyon not out, the match’s duration could have been shorter with New Zealand and not Australia winning the Test.

That Test was a low scoring one. New Zealand won the toss, batted first and scored 202. In reply, Australia were struggling at 116 for 8-still 86 runs behind on the first innings. A run later Australia’s Lyon got the benefit of the third umpire’s error and the match turned greatly in Australia’s favour.

Peter Neville, the Australian keeper who scored 66, put on 74 for the ninth wicket with Lyon and 34 for the last wicket with Starc and Australia ended its first innings at 224 – taking a crucial 22 run first innings lead when they should probably have been way behind.

To the credit of the Kiwis, they took the umpire’s error in their stride and scored 208 in the second innings. Australia went on to win the Test by three wickets. The Test was dominated by the pacemen of both sides who took 29 wickets in all out of the 37 that fell.

Too much swing

In that Test, the pink ball not only swung a little too much under lights but was also not easily visible to the players. The visibility of the seam caused a lot of problems. The green thread which was used to stitch the ball together did not stand out as prominently as the white thread on the red ball did. There was also apprehension about how long the ball would last in drier conditions.