SA great Shaun Pollock favours pink ball option in day-time Tests

After weather played truant in the ongoing first Test between South Africa and Australia here, former Proteas all-rounder Shaun Pollock has urged the teams to use pink balls in the traditional format to minimise the loss of playing time due to bad light. South Africa were 102 for 4 while chasing 421 at the end of Day 4. But only 221 of the allotted 270 overs could be bowled across the first three days at Kingsmead.

The ICC has recently permitted the usage of pink balls in daytime Tests on a trial basis, subject to both captains agreeing to the arrangement before the match.

Once approved, the pink ball must be used for the entire Test, with no provision to switch back to the red ball. “I am not saying for one moment that we should have used the pink ball and played a day-night game,” Pollock told Fox Sports.

“I just believed we should have used the pink ball for the day game. It is not irrelevant because if you use the red ball, all of a sudden you cannot play Test cricket past bad light time, but if you use the pink one, you can,” he said.

Pollock was also interested to see which ball — red or pink — the teams would be interested to bowl with when the stakes are high. “If this was a final or a game where you had to win to enter the World Test Championship final and it was 1-all in the series, and Australia was playing South Africa and you tell them, ‘Let’s use the pink ball because we are going to lose 100 overs to bad light’ do you think they would agree or not agree?”

South Africa senior assistant coach Ashwell Prince, however, favoured retaining the traditional red ball in Test cricket.

“For me, outside of a day-night Test, it has got to be a red ball. I think, obviously, some nations have played a lot more pink ball cricket than others and so, therefore, to get both captains to agree is always going to be a challenge.

“To get both captains to agree to that, some teams will feel that they simply do not have enough experience of it, so, I think it would be very difficult to get both captains to agree. But for me, you know, Test matches are the red ball,” said Prince.