Jury still out on sighting

Yuvraj Singh felt "it moved a bit more than SG Test" while Robin Uthappa's observations varied from "colour change" to "lack of reverse swing" as the first set of inputs on BCCI's much talked about 'Pink ball' Day/Night experiment came to the fore.

For starters, there has been varied opinions on whether an individual batsman has been able to sight the pink kookaburra ball well or not but everyone agreed that not much effort was required to "maintain the ball" unlike the conventional red kookaburra, SG Test or Dukes.

While Yuvraj did not have a great time with the willow but his input will be the most valuable one for the BCCI.

"I thought the pink ball moved a bit more than the SG ball. It was pretty exciting, the pink ball doesn't go old. It was coming onto the bat nicely," the India Red skipper said.

Veteran glovesman Parthiv Patel sees future in Pink ball Test but he conceded that this ball skids a bit more.

"I had no problem in sighting. During the day, I could see the ball better. Not used to getting the pink ball coming to you. It's a matter of getting used to it but visibility was not a problem."

"As far as future is concerned, too early to say. Definitely there is a future. But dew could be a factor. The ball skid and moved more. Also I don't think you can have Tests in sub-continent using this much of grass," said Parthiv.

However both Robin Uthappa and Parthiv feel that reverse swing will be difficult with pink ball as the shine and gloss of the ball doesn't seem to wear out.

"We tried hard but there was no reverse swing. There is conventional swing but the shine is maintained so well that there is no chance of reverse swing. I also found that colour varied at different times." said Uthappa. 

If one goes by Abhinav Mukund, there were "initial difficulties during net sessions" but in the match he "did not have problems sighting the ball".

"I think a lot of people had issues sighting the ball, but I didn't have any issues with visibility. The wicket was damp, that's perhaps why so many wickets fell on the first day. But I feel the swing was a conventional one and not because of pink ball," was the gist of what he said.