Birmingham: Before this week, Stuart Broad only had one experience of bowling with a pink cricket ball and that was sending down a delivery in a demonstration for a British TV channel in June.
The England paceman will be playing an international match with the pink ball Thursday, one of a raft of new challenges facing him and his teammates in their first-ever day-night Test.
“It’s stepping into the unknown completely,” Broad said ahead of the first of three Tests against the touring West Indies.
That unknown includes the pink ball, changing sleep patterns and different mealtimes – with the subsequent impact on energy levels.
“We’re going to have to be so adaptable and figure out what’s going on,” Broad pointed out. “The exciting thing is we are going in with a clear mind and learning on the job, almost. In a sense you can also call us ‘underprepared’.”
This will be the fifth day-night Test match after the ICC introduced the option of countries playing day-night Tests in a bid to ‘enhance the public appeal of cricket’s oldest format and so that Test cricket ‘remains relevant in the modern age’.
Pink balls are used instead of red ones so that there can be better visibility for batsmen and fielders under the lights. England’s players have said the Dukes ball (one to be used for the match) goes soft quickly, is hard to shine, and doesn’t turn as much for spinners.
Chris Woakes said the ball moved around more in the ‘twilight period’. “It was a bit different,” Woakes said Wednesday. “Not like a white ball, not like a red ball, somewhere in between.”
Broad spoke of players’ needing to get the levels of food intake just right so they can have the energy to last through the evening, with play due to finish at 9pm local time.
England start as favourite against the West Indies, who are No.8 in the Test rankings and have lost six straight Test series. They are also without a number of key players, such as Chris Gayle, Marlon Samuels and Darren Sammy, because of a previous dispute with the West Indies Cricket Board.
“I think people are writing the West Indies off too early,” team manager Joel Garner said, ‘and it could be at their own peril.”
associated press