Pink balls too quick for Aussie quickie tail-enders!

MELBOURNE - Even as Cricket Australia stepped up its push to stage day-night Tests by commencing a trial of pink balls in Futures League matches on Tuesday, the country’s tail-enders including - paceman Dirk Nannes - remain unconvinced of the merits of a pink ball.

“All I know is, in the nets when the pink cricket balls are used in the bowling machine, I can’t see them. But it’s just me and one other bloke in the [Victorian] squad who can’t see them,” The Age quoted Nannes, as saying.

“I don’t know what it is; I’m not colour blind, I just choose not to use them - if I sat down and took the time to bat, which I don’t do all that often, maybe they’re just coming too fast; I don’t know,” he added.

Australian selector Jamie Cox, who is also the director of cricket in South Australia, admitted that the pink balls have received mixed reviews at Redback training.

“At some of our early net trials there was some suspicion. But we haven’t seen them in match conditions so we will wait and see so today will be a very interesting day,” Cox said.

However, Cox still believes that the experiment is worthwhile.

“It’s a fair-dinkum trial to see if these things can hold up, which could be good news if they can. It could be a long way away, I guess. A lot of it is determined on how this thing holds up - if it holds up OK we might be closer than we think,” he said.

“But it’s a concept I know Cricket Australia are willing to try and have a real good crack at to see if it can actually extend Test match cricket into night-time conditions to enable more people access to the game,” he added. (ANI)