Cricket: Six key questions ahead of pink ball test

The pink ball. Photo / Getty Images.

David Leggat answers the key questions ahead of the pink ball test starting on Thursday at Eden Park:

1: Why use a pink ball at all?
Cricket boards, with Cricket Australia prominent, had long been keen to try initiatives to boost interest in test cricket. In most parts of the world, crowds are flagging.

Something was needed to be done to arrest the slump. ODI and T20s are played under lights. Why not five-dayers? The red ball clearly wouldn't work, nor would white last 80 overs, so ball manufacturers cast about for a third colour.

After years of experimentation, pink was chosen as the colour most likely to work, and best for visibility for players and spectators. Even then there were variations in the tone of the pink — magenta, cerise, hot pink, or lavender pink perhaps —and the colour of the stitching. White and green have been tried. Now black is in. The crowds poured in for the first match in Adelaide. New Zealand Cricket are hoping for a similar outcome from Thursday.

2: Is the pink ball essentially a red ball spray painted pink?
All balls, red, white or pink, have the same basic composition. The core is made up of cork, which gives weight and bounce. It is layered with tightly-wound string and encased in leather, with a slightly raised stitched seam.

3: What have the first eight matches taught us?
There's a basic pattern. Broadly speaking the new ball swings in the afternoon, but batting gets better through the middle period (so far nothing unusual there). Then when the lights kick in it's a good time to be a quality seamer. Brendon McCullum, captaining New Zealand in the inaugural match in Adelaide, opined before the start that pink test captains who win the toss and bat, might look to declare late on the first evening to give his seamers a crack in favourable conditions.

In other words, skippers needed to become nimble in their thinking. One who did was South Africa's Faf du Plessis, also at Adelaide in late 2016, declaring at 259 for nine shortly before stumps on the first night. It didn't work, Australia winning by seven wickets.

But the notion of captains having to think outside the square remains valid. One other thing: just because a team scores solidly in its first innings, there's no guarantee that their second innings won't go belly up — to wit, Pakistan in Dubai against the West Indies and Sri Lanka. Conditions do change.

4: So prepare for plenty of runs then?
Well, not necessarily. The highest score in the eight previous day-night tests is the 579 for three by Pakistan against the West Indies in Dubai in late 2016, which included a triple century by Azhar Ali. Second place is England's 514 for eight against Pakistan at Edgbaston last year. No other total has reached 500. Six completed innings have produced less than 150, Zimbabwe's 68 against South Africa last December something of an outlier.

Importantly, only three completed fourth innings have reached 230 — Pakistan's bold 450 at Brisbane in late 2016; the West Indies 289 in Dubai; and England's 233 at Adelaide late last year. Fourth innings runs are tough, as they should be.

5: Tossing it up
There's a trend for rival skippers Kane Williamson and Joe Root to ponder at the toss on Thursday afternoon. Only once out of the eight tests has the skipper who won the toss opted to send the opposition in to bat. It didn't work for him. Australia won the match in Adelaide late last year by 120 runs. The captain? The very same Root.

6: Over and out
Rain is threatening to dampen the test this week. But here's a thought: you don't need a full five days to complete a pink ball test. A full five-day test would involve 450 overs, or thereabouts depending on speed of over rates and issues such as light. Of the eight day-nighters only one has involved more than 400 overs — Pakistan's win over the West Indies in Dubai in late 2016 took 420.1 overs to complete, Pakistan winning by 56 runs.

In simple terms, that's roughly the equivalent of a daytime test being over by tea on the fifth day. The shortest match was South Africa's belting of Zimbabwe in Port Elizabeth late last year, the match needing just 151.1 overs. That was completed in two days.

Three-day tests are not uncommon, so don't despair if precipitation holds things up over the coming five days. And don't forget there has yet to be a draw with a pink ball.