Sheffield Shield: Pink cricket ball with black seam to be used

Melbourne:  The pink Kookaburra ball with a completely black seam will be used in next week’s round of day-night Sheffield Shield matches in Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth, Cricket Australia (CA) announced on Wednesday. “Feedback from the players following the first day-night shield round, as well as the historic day-night Test in Adelaide, is that while the ball had improved significantly, the seam was difficult to see at times,” CA’s head of cricket operations Sean Cary said. “To address these concerns, we’ve worked with Kookaburra to introduce a fully black seam to make it easier to see. It is an important change and we will continue to get the players’ feedback during the course of these matches. Given the success of the first day-night Test, we want to give our players more opportunities to play with the pink ball particularly as we begin to look ahead to the 2016-17 season,” Cary said. ALSO READ: Cricket to introduce red and yellow cards?

Australia hosted the first day-night Test against New Zealand late last year with the pink Kookaburra ball. There were visibility concerns raised by batsmen during that game, which took place at the Adelaide Oval. Kookaburra have now unveiled a new pink ball with black stitching, rather than the green and white of the previous incarnation. After the Test match, Cricket Australia (CA) was looking forward to developing the pink ball more, that was used in the inaugural day-night Test in Adelaide a month ago and now has become well known for it.

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Black Caps skipper Brendon McCullum, called the historic match as “roaring success”. There were around 123,736 viewers at Adelaide Oval for the three days of that game. The pink ball did not attract any controversy, even though it was subject to lot of debate. No innings lasting more than 73 over, however the ball remained undamaged with the green pitch and grassy outfield helping the ball remain intact.