Cow Corner Blog

Cricket's in the pink

Tue Apr 22 12:18PM

Yesterday, the MCC took on Scotland at Lord's in a 50-over friendly match as part of an experiment to discover whether a ball painted pink will retain its colour for longer in one-day matches.

The thinking is to develop a ball that shows up better than the red ball against dark skies, but that doesn't collect the grass stains that mark the white ball as another faceless Kolpak batsman smears a cut to the cover fence.

Apparently, the experiment was "encouraging" - although even by county cricket's standards, there were few there to witness it. The crowd was skimpier than an IPL cheerleader's hot-pants in the heat of a Delhi summer.

Former county trundler John Stephenson, one of the men responsible for overseeing the pink ball's development and who captained the MCC side against the Scots said: "Having bowled with the ball I can say it behaved normally..."

Which is to say that his military-medium-pacers were dispatched to the boundary with suitable force and regularity.

One-time England spinner Min Patel, who also played, agreed: "Once I became used to a pink ball whizzing past me in the slips, I almost forgot about its colour."

"Almost forgot" about its colour? How long can it really take to get over the fact you are playing with a pink ball? And what in the name of the Horwich Sunday School League was Min Patel doing in the slips anyway?

Even in his prime, Min Patel made Monty Panesar look like Jonty Rhodes.

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With fears that the pink ball might swing like a boomerang seemingly allayed, Cowers can't help but feel a little bit of sympathy for one England bowler.

Especially when Dr Anthony Bull, part of the team of boffins from Imperial College London working on the project, claimed that the pink ball could travel "20 percent further off the bat".

No swing? Flies through slips? Rockets off the bat? Surely the beginning of the end for poor Jimmy Anderson...

Still, Jimmy can take heart that his name was not the most conspicuous in yesterday's 26-man England Performance Squad for the summer.

Steve Harmison? Really?

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INAUGURAL "THIS IS PRECISELY THE SORT OF COMMENT THAT SEPARATES COW CORNER READERS FROM EARLY DOORS READERS" AWARD GOES TO: G_Hine, for this impressive piece of swelling off in response to a question about the usage of "sic": "Basically Latin for 'thus' but used to ridicule poor spelling or incorrect word usage in reproduced text without the person reproducing the error being thought of as incorrect. It does not, however, prevent people from rightfully thinking that said person is a pompous pedant." Indeed, my friend.

TALKING POINT: The greatest Pink: Floyd, Ladies or Panther?

COMING UP: Let's face it: no-one is shelling out £10-a-month to watch Setanta, so the next-best way to follow the IPL fireworks is with us: Hyderabad Deccan Chargers v Delhi Daredevils from 2.30pm...

Comments1 - 7 of 7

woooo first comment
Pink Panther all the way
Here in South Africa if you have the full sattelite package then you get the IPL coverage and at R475 a month its great (in pounds thats about 40) for 150 channels and 10 sports channels albiet that one of them is espn.
From dannickbates on Tue Apr 22 12:22PM
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and pink balls? LOL please spare us the agony
Id rather have pink eye than pink balls
From dannickbates on Tue Apr 22 12:24PM
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The Pink'un a newspaper devoted to the god-like Norwich City FC and nothing whatsoever to do with homosexuality - In spite of comments that I have received when reading my copy.
Perhaps the ball could be sponsored by the FT or maybe even Stonewall (the gay rights movement, not Geoffrey Boycott)
From g_hine on Tue Apr 22 01:09PM
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My vote for the best pink related phrase has to go to "The Shocker"... two in the pink, one in the stink!
From c_e_davison on Tue Apr 22 01:59PM
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Pink balls haha, nice try but a bit late for April fools day, how stupid do you think we are, my IQ is almost in double figures now!
From sikka316 on Tue Apr 22 02:19PM
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The best ever Pink? Floyd, without a doubt. Although Panther deserves mentioning in despatches, due to the complete genius of Mr Sellers. Notable missing from your list, one Alicia Moore (I'd tap that... round the corner just past leg slip)
From hornystevers on Tue Apr 22 06:29PM
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I think that a pink ball does not work because it is a daft and stupid idea
we should stick to the red and white ball.
Also the idea of the fielder and batsman trying to tell the umpires there job when we play south africa is a disater waiting to happen the MMC should take a good look at it self the bunch of 57 old farts.
From thomas_rea1977 on Wed Apr 23 01:57PM
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