Pink ball receives rave reviews ahead of international debut in November
Earlier this week, the match between Prime Minister’s XI and New Zealand saw the use of pink ball. The experiment of using the pink ball in this 50 over fixture was to see if there were any issues raised before the November 27 Adelaide test between the Aussies and the Black Caps.
The reviews given by the players are really at variance. Adam Voges, the captain of Prime Minister’s XI communicated concerns over the pink ball’s capacity to hold up for 80 overs. He also said that under lights, the ball was “more green” than pink by the end of 50 overs. Thus raising questions over the manufacturer, Kookaburra.
Kookaburra have already had incalculable versions of this ball over the last 4 or 5 years. There have been different issues raised over by the critics over the new ball including its visibility,discolourration and holding up capacity in day/night matches.
Voges added “It looked as though the lacquer had come off and it was turning green basically. There were bits of pink left, but it was more green than pink by the end. I know that it stopped swinging, there was no reverse-swing or anything like that because both sides get chunked up equally, but yeah the older it gets, I can't see it being any easier to see.”
With the Sheffield Shield cup commencing, players had diverse views for the controversial pink ball. Three Day/Night test matches started on 28th of October. With only a month away from its international Debut, the ball has had unpredictable results till now.
Steve Smith, the Australian skipper was in much favour of the ball as he scored 67 for the New South Wales. After the play ended, this is what Smith had to say about the experimental ball, “It swung quite early today as well, they (SA) had the ball swinging for the first hour and a half”
According to Smith the ball held up pretty well and he mentioned that these are good indications for the future. But in the parallel match between Tasmania and Western Australia, Jackson Bird had a major issue with the visibility of the ball. He said that he could hardly see the ball after 60 overs when it was dark.
This is what he told to cricket.com.au “It was really tough (to see) when the ball got old and around that 60-over mark when it was getting dark and the ball was getting old that was the hardest time to field, there was definitely a few times where I didn't see the ball at all.”
As soon as the new ball was given, Bird was happy and mentioned that it had perfect visibility. Jackson mentioned how important it was to capitalize on the new ball, he said “We got a few early wickets with it though and I think that's the key with these (pink) balls, you need to cash in with the new ball while it still swinging around because it's pretty tough work after that.”
In Melbourne, we had another different kind of analysis for the ball. The Victorian squad member John Hastings raised concerns over the hardness of the ball. Hastings, who has played with the earlier version of the ball was rather satisfied with the discolouration this time. According to him this ball held up much better colours than those in the past.
These were his actual thoughts over the ball, “The discolouration was a little bit of a factor tonight but not more so than it has been in the past. I think it stayed together a bit better than it has in the past. The ball just doesn't move off the straight. It's tough work. All you've got to do is set straight fields and it's a quite a boring brand of cricket when you do have that pink ball."
With mixed reviews from all the three Sheffield Shield matches down under, its anybody’s guess as to what will happen when this ball makes it international debut on November 27th, in Adelaide. With inconsistency in all the matches played till now, it will be exciting to see how the ball behaves at the test level.