India wicketkeeper Wriddhiman Saha on Wednesday brushed aside concerns about pink ball being a challenge for bowlers like Mohammed Shami who, according to him, can be trusted to come good irrespective of the ball’s colour or the nature of the surface.
Shami had a match-haul of seven wickets among the Indian pace attack’s collective haul of 14 scalps in the home team’s innings and 130-run victory over Bangladesh in the first Test in Indore.
“With the form they (Shami, Ishant Sharma and Umesh Yadav) are in, the pink ball is not a factor. Especially (Mohammed) Shami, he can be deadly on any wicket. He has pace and is able to extract reverse swing,” Saha said when asked whether colour of the ball will make more difference.
Saha said that they haven’t yet checked how much movement is on offer as far as pink ball is concerned.
“We are yet to see the movement of the pink ball. But the colour of the ball won’t matter with the current form of our pacers,” Saha added.
A handful of Indian players, including Bengal’s Shami and Saha, have pink ball experience in domestic cricket but the wicketkeeper pointed out that it was a Kookaburra.
“The only change is the colour of the ball. It’s made differently. There’s also a change in the timing and picking the ball a bit difficult in twilight. It may help the pacers but will be challenging for the batsmen,” Saha said.
New Beginning
Senior Indian off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin feels Day/Night Tests will mark a new beginning for the traditional format in the country as the spectator count will improve drastically owing to the match timings.
The daily proceedings in the match will start at 1pm and wind up by 8pm.
“I just hope this marks the beginning of where we get huge crowds coming into the stadium and Test cricket gets its credit and obviously with the change in timings people can afford to finish their work and come into the game, watch it and enjoy it,” Ashwin said on Star Sports. His teammate Mohammed Shami is focussed on the challenges that await him in the game.
“The middle session should be the main focus for batsman while using the pink ball unlike the morning session that is usually considered the most important in a test match as it will have more of a swing in Eden Gardens,” he said.
Shami said the bowlers will have to work very hard to extract any assistance from the pink ball.
“...The pink ball is only useful when there a hard and grassy wicket because the ball goes straight.
“Pink ball is a very different ball and doesn’t work like the white or red ball at all so there is a very low possibility that in the last session we get a swing or reverse so we will have to work very hard,” he said.