DRS opens door for the Pink Balls

The pink ball will make its international debut on November 27

With much speculation over the new pink ball being introduced in the Day/Night Test matches, we finally have good news. The ball has finally cleared the tests and is fit for use in the upcoming Australia VS New Zealand inaugural day/night international Test on 27th November.

The ball enjoyed the trials that it went through during the Sheffield Shield Cup match between South Australia and New South Wales at the Adelaide Oval, where the ball will make its International Debut.

In initial tests in New Zealand a few weeks earlier, the ball didn’t perform so well with the eagle eye ball-tracker, Ian Taylor, Head of Animation Research, a New Zealand based entity behind the Eagle Eye ball-tracker said that initially the ball worked for “some time” but this time the pink ball passed the tests without any bugs.

According to him, these tests were much favourable than the previous trials in New Zealand.

Ian Taylor was positive about this trial and he said that this was mainly because of a good green grassed pitch which helped the ball retain its colour.

“We had a lot of concerns after doing testing down here [in New Zealand] but actually under the conditions that were there and the pitch that was laid it was really encouraging," Taylor said.

"It was always about whether we could actually track it. What we'd been concerned about in the testing we'd done was we were having a lot of trouble tracking it, but with the right pitch and square it went really well.” Taylor told Cricinfo.

He also mentioned about how it was a difficult task for them to cover all the elements to make this experiment a successful one. According to him, the ball was not the only concern.

He further added, “It was never just about the pink ball, it was about a whole combination of elements. The pitch was designed for the pink ball so that it maintained its colour much better.

“It definitely worked - we'd had no trouble tracking a pink ball in our testing, but once it lost colour it was very difficult. But on the pitch they'll be playing on in Adelaide it stayed pink. We were there for all four days, day and night, and everybody came out very positive. It's a huge relief."

In the initial runs in New Zealand, the basic problem that arose was the tracking of the ball due to its changing colour on the artificial pitch that was built. The ball was completely consumed and gutted, which created a problem for the tracker to judge the ball.

Taylor was concerned with the amount of time and efforts the company had put in to prepare the algorithms to prepare this tracker.

He told Cricinfo, “Most of these things when you bring something new in you'd expect to be able to test it over a much longer period of time. But it was always a case where if we could see it and track it, we had years of algorithms that help to track it - but if you can't see it then you're going to have trouble tracking it.”

"There were no games for us, so we had gone out and set up an operation here in a stadium so we could test it under lights and we didn't have much luck at all once the lights went on and the ball was worn. We were bowling it on a plastic, roll out pitch on a rugby field, so that ripped the ball to bits.”

Until this time the Animation Research wasn’t confident about what the real conditions could be, they had been working on artificial conditions. But now, after they tried the ball under lights, it seems that the ball is performing much better for Eagle Eyeball–tracker.

Finally, Taylor added, “They said to us these are the conditions you'll be working under, so come on up and try it. So we took the whole kit and it made a hell of a difference. We didn't have any trouble tracking it and in the daytime you actually see it better than the red ball.”

It’s really a feat to make this innovation a successful one now. Now that the Decision Review System (DRS) has opened doors for the pink ball after rigorous trials, everyone will be looking forward to watching this new ball in action.

With mixed reviews from the players, the ball’s real test will start on the 27th of November. Much excitement awaits ahead of us as this game keeps improving day by day. We don’t know what to expect from this sport tomorrow, it really is full of surprises.