Will The Pink Ball Pass Its First Test In India?

The cherry will go strawberry in India’s first-ever day-and-night cricket Test match.

The Virat Kohli-led team will take on Mominul Haque-led Bangladesh at Eden Gardens, Kolkata in the second match of the series. And it will be the nation’s first Test using a pink ball under lights. Usually, five-day matches are played during the day with a red ball.

It’s also the first time that India’s largest cricket gear maker Sanspareils Greenlands, popularly called SG, will supply the fluorescent ball for an international match. The 12 day-and-night Tests played so far have used British Dukes and Australian Kookaburra balls.

The pink ball has had its share of controversy with players complaining about its seam not holding for the minimum 80 overs it’s stipulated to last in a Test. The colour often faded in the past, making it difficult to spot under lights, particularly for colour-blind players.

Former Australian Test opener Chris Rogers had to pull out of his state side Victoria’s trial of the pink ball as he could not spot it under lights. “It’s still going to be very difficult for people like myself with vision difficulties. So I don’t think it’s ideal,” he had said in 2014. “But if it’s the way of the future then you have to embrace it.”

A community called Colour Blind Awareness too wrote to the England & Wales Cricket board, asking it to “review the use of the ball to ensure that steps are taken to ensure that colour-blind people, whether players or fans, can also enjoy the sport”.

SG hopes its research and development has helped find a remedy. “Our focus, our R&D, all the tests that we have done have revolved around the retention of the pink colour,” Paras Anand, director of marketing at SG, told BloombergQuint. “That was one area we had to work very hard.”

The Indian captain felt that the pink ball offers more help to bowlers, especially early on. “You need to be a bit more compact. You cannot afford to play too many shots early on as you may with the red ball. It does quite a bit. It seams a lot as well,” Kohli said after a nets session. “I think it’s more or less playing in seaming and swinging conditions, especially if the pitch has a bit of grass on it.”

Anand, however, said not everything is in the hands of the ball maker. A pitch with ample grass cover will help the pink ball retain its colour for longer, he said.

To find out if that happens, wait till the last ball is bowled at Eden Gardens in the Test that starts on Friday.