Abhijit Bhattacharya is one of the on-field umpires during the first four-day pink-ball match which was played in India. Bhattacharya predicts that pink ball tends to behave a lot like a white ball which is used in limited-overs.
Premdip Chatterjee and Bhattacharya were happened to be officiating the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) Super League finals in 2016, which was the first-ever five-day pink-ball match in the country. in this match, Mohun Bagan defeated Bhowanipore.
Bhattacharya has recollected the experience of being part of the first historic pink-ball match.
Bhattacharya said, “I went into the game with an open mind, For me, it was just about a different colour. How different could it be from the red or white ball? I would say that the behaviour of the pink ball was closer to that of the white ball. There wasn’t too much difference.”
He noticed the difference between a red and a pink ball. “I would say that the behaviour of the pink ball was closer to that of the white ball… There wasn’t too much difference,” he opined.
“We were watching it from very close quarters, so our inputs were very important. They were more apprehensive than their opponents. The batsman who had left a good ball alone in the first innings, went on to get a half-century in the second,” said Bhattacharya.
The umpire recalled, “As there was no marked change in its shape, we didn’t have to change the ball. In fact, it retained quite a bit of its characteristics. There was a fair amount of movement early on, but later it became easy. Mohammed Shami extracted some reverse swing too.”
“The players were sighting the ball better under lights and no one complained of any problem during the twilight zone,” he added.
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