‘Day-night Tests not quite cricket’

“Test matches revolve around the deterioration of the ball from new to old and that brings the fast bowlers, medium pacers and spinners into play at different stages of the game,” Elliott said.

“We all look forward to the second new ball being introduced after 80 overs when the whole game changes again. If they are going to use a light-coloured ball that can be seen at night, the fundamental problem will be discolouration and the constant need to change. We have not been able to solve that problem for 30 years and I can’t see a solution now. There would be no Warnes or Muralis, it would be all medium pace. We’ve been through that era and it was pretty boring cricket. It seems to me to be a bit of kite-flying. Any light-coloured ball is going to get dirty.

Are they going to be happy to change the ball every 35 overs? In doing that you will fundamentally change the game,” he was quoted as saying by the Sydney Morning Herald.

Different colour balls have been unsuccessfully trialled at various points of time such as an orange ball was used when day-night Sheffield Shield games were played in the mid-1990s. But batsmen felt it was “like facing Halley’s Comet”.

The white ball, used in limited-overs cricket, would clash with the players’ white clothing, but a bright pink ball will be trialled during an interstate women’s Twenty20 game on January 10.