Yorkshire’s second team player-coach John Blain has admitted he is unsure whether the International Cricket Council’s experiment to play with a pink ball will work.
The ICC Cricket Committee recommended earlier this week that all Test playing countries use the pink ball in at least one round of their domestic first-class competition over the next 12 months.
They have even refused to rule out a pink ball being used in the LV= County Championship before the end of this summer, although it is more likely to happen early next season.
And if the experiment, which should also take place in Australia and South Africa, works, then it heightens the possibility of day/night Test cricket being introduced across the globe.
The pink ball has already been used in the champion county match in Abu Dhabi for the last two years, and is being trialled this summer in the English counties’ second team 40-over Trophy competition.
Yorkshire twos have already played one Trophy match and two friendlies with the Kookaburra ball.
And former Scotland international Blain said: “I’m not sure there are too many positives from it just yet “It’s not been as volatile as the white ball, so the positive is that it’s playing truer in that sense.
“But, in terms of the actual make-up of the ball, the longevity of it has been poor. It’s scuffed easily, it’s damaged easily, it’s become softer, it’s split down the quarter regularly and taken chunks out of the ball. It’s maybe detracted from the quality of the cricket.
“When we played at Headingley, the wicket wasn’t that abrasive, but it still damaged the ball.
“My experience is that the balls get damaged quite easily. The white ball seems to have a bit more solidity about it.
“I’m not so sure from a spectator point of view whether you can see it that clearly either. The guys in the viewing gallery are struggling to see it off the bat.”
Not only are experiments taking place in the second team 40-over competition, there is also a new look to their Twenty20 competition too.
There are four groups of five teams, with each county playing the other twice on the same day. The top team in each group then qualifies for a Finals Day that replicates the first team one.
Yorkshire, Lancashire, Durham, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire make up one group.
Yorkshire, for example, will play Lancashire twice at Neston on Monday May 30, with matches starting at 11.30am and 3pm.
“We’re certainly involved in some new and innovative ideas at second team level,” added Blain. “Whether they will all work, we’ll have to see. But it is exciting.”
I WAS convinced Jonny Bairstow was going to carry out the London Bus theory against Hampshire earlier this week.
You know, you wait ages for one to come along and then two come at once.
Bairstow has waited a while for his first hundred, but broke his duck with a mesmerising 205 against Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge. He was then closing in on a second ton at Headingley, but fell for 83.
But if I can continue with the old transport theme for a few words longer, one thing is for sure: Bairstow has started this summer like a train.
The ex-Dunnington man also scored 81 against Durham and 50 not out against Notts, both in defeats at Headingley.
White Rose director of professional cricket Martyn Moxon said: “Hundreds from your top five or top six batters are what win you games.
“Hopefully, Jonny has got the thirst for that, and he looks in really fine form just at this minute.”
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