Pink is the colour of cricket this summer and Glamorgan are one of many counties hoping new revenue might keep them out of the red. Richard Thomas says the new format is no pale imitation.
Swinging pink balls, soft lighting, the thwack of leather on willow and the promise of a light supper. Sounds like one of those parties you are glad not to be invited to.
Welcome to day-night County Championship cricket with all 18 counties playing four-day cricket under floodlights this month. Cardiff has been hosting its first ever day-night County Championship match against Derbyshire, although Glamorgan are old hands at this having taken part in the only previous day-night Championship fixture back in 2011 down in Kent.
Games have been getting underway at 2pm rather than the traditional 11am, and pink balls are being used rather than red to make the ball easier for the batsman to see through daylight, dusk and under the floodlights.
The England and Wales Cricket Board introduced this new format to encourage bigger crowds, but mainly to provide a trial for England players ahead of their day-night Test against West Indies in August as well as a day-night Test in Adelaide in December as part of the 2017-18 Ashes series.
After the first day Glamorgan coach Robert Croft said he remained open-minded about the pink ball and its ability to swing.
On the introduction of day-night four-day cricket he added: “If the ECB and world cricket are serious about making pink-ball, day-night four-day and Test match cricket a thing of the future, we have to play more of it to get people used to it.”
It’s just the latest innovation in a game that has had its fair share in the past couple of decades as the powers that be attempt to monetise cricket to the max. But you cannot criticise the suits for trying anything to improve the game.
Meanwhile, former Glamorgan all-rounder Darren Thomas has contacted Dai Sport via Twitter with regards last week’s column on the county’s record-breaking 50-over match against Surrey 15 years ago, which accrued 867 runs in which Alistair Brown scored 268 from 160 balls, including 12 sixes and 30 fours.
Thomas conceded 108 runs from nine overs representing the worst spell in world limited-overs history. But he went some way to atoning for that by scoring an unbeaten 71 from 41 balls which helped his side get close to the winning line.
Thomas wanted to remind us that in that game he had Brown and David Ward, who put on over 200 together, dropped behind the wicket in the same over.
Thanks for pointing that out, Darren, and hard luck. But if you had taken those wickets the match might have turned out to be just another run-of-the-mill one-day game with no history-making moments.