Pink Ball to be Ditched

Elizabeth Ammon.
The Times.

Tuesday, 9 October 2018.

The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) is set to scrap day-night County Championship matches just two seasons after first introducing them. Feedback from counties, players and supporters on the day-night matches, which use a pink ball, has been predominantly negative and with the jury still out on whether day-night Tests are effective in England, the governing body are poised to shelve the experiment.

Pink-ball County Championship matches were first introduced in 2017, mainly for cricketing reasons because England were due to play three pink-ball Test matches in the subsequent 12 months, against the West Indies, Australia and New Zealand. The experiment continued in 2018 season with day-night matches played at various times throughout the season. The ECB sought feedback from the players and officials following each round of matches but it has been almost universally negative in terms of the pink ball and the timings of the matches, according to some players, affecting the quality of the cricket.

Mark Arthur, Yorkshire’s chief executive, recently gave a damning verdict on the experiment. “I think it’s rubbish, and you can quote me on that”, he said. “It undermines the quality of the County Championship. Hampshire would normally get 1,700 spectators when Yorkshire turn up. They had half of that, and for the last hour, there were 100 people left in the ground, and that is disrespectful to our cricket-watching public. You have to be really careful that experiments for the ECB are not to the detriment of county cricket, and I think that is one that is. The players do not like it; you cannot see the ball at a certain time, to the side of the wicket; the quality of the ball was shocking. Why are we doing it?”

At a recent meeting between the ECB and the county chief executives, the majority asked for the pink-ball matches to be cancelled. During the 2018 season counties in Division One used a pink ‘Kookaburra' ball and counties in Division Two used a pink ‘Dukes' ball but feedback from the players and officials was that neither were satisfactory. Players in Division Two found the ‘Dukes' ball swung too much and players in Division One found the ‘Kookaburra' ball did too little apart from during the twilight period.

The pink-ball experiment has also had no positive impact on the number of spectators in the grounds — it had been hoped that some people may come to watch after work — and in many grounds, spectators left the match at the usual time of around 6.30 pm leaving the evening sessions played in front of barely any spectators.

Although pink-ball matches have proved to be effective in other parts of the world, the unique conditions in England do not necessarily lend themselves to it because at the height of summer the sun doesn’t set until very late, meaning the floodlights are only in effect for around an hour — rendering the experiment almost pointless — and because of the lengthy periods of twilight where the pink ball behaves very differently compared to daylight hours and under lights. Some players and supporters have said that they have struggled to see the pink ball, particularly during the twilight period.

There are no confirmed plans for any more day-night Test matches in England and certainly not in 2019 — the Ashes is already a marquee event which would not need to have a day-night Test. Although the ECB has not confirmed to county executives that there will be no pink-ball fixtures next season, it is expected that they will do so before the 2019 fixture list is published in early December.