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No difference between pink and red ball, says Gambhir
- Updated: September 9, 2016
Having captained India Blue in two matches of the Duleep Trophy, Gautam Gambhir has categorically said that the pink ball behaves in “exactly the same way” as the red ball. Rejecting assertions that playing with a pink ball under lights is significantly different to the way long-form cricket is usually played, Gambhir said the players are required to make only minor adjustments to come to terms with the conditions.
“We have to be clear, it is only the colour of the ball that has changed, nothing else has changed,” Gambhir told ESPNcricinfo from Delhi. “It is a Kookaburra ball that behaves exactly the same way as a red ball or a white ball. People make so much fuss about the pink ball that it swings more or dips more, you can’t pick the wristspinners and so on. I believe the more you think about it, the more complicated you make the game. It is far more visible in the day time as compared to the red ball because it is far more brighter. In the last two games that I have played, I have seen nothing different. The red ball and pink ball behave exactly in the same way.”
The Duleep trophy, played in a zonal format previously, was re-formatted this season by the BCCI as an experiment to gauge the players’ reaction to playing first-class cricket under lights with a pink ball. India Blue, led by Gautam Gambhir, will face India Red, led by Yuvraj Singh, in the final in Greater Noida starting September 10. The intention behind the tournament is also to assess the feasibility of playing a day-night Test match in India in the near future, though Gambhir was unenthused by such a move.
“I am a traditionalist, I have always believed it is meant to be played during the day, that is my personal observation,” he said. “You can change the 50 over to T20 format, but Test cricket should remain the way it has been because you can’t lose the charm. Ultimately, the idea behind the pink ball is so that you can pull the crowd back. In England and Australia, there are packed crowds during the day Test matches. Maybe because we couldn’t pull crowds during day time, we wanted to experiment. Maybe we could have promoted …
