Australia cricketers want 'bad-light' ball to tackle cricket's long-standing problem

The head of the Australian Cricketers' Association, Todd Greenberg, on Friday, stated that the team's players are eager to create a ball that will enable Test matches to be played even during bad light. Greenberg stated that he will discuss possible collaborative ventures with Cricket Australia.

Australia are currently hosting South Africa for a three-match Test series. Winning the first two Tests, Australia clinched the series before hand, but the third Test did not go as planned for either sides. The day-night Pink-ball affair started off well, but the weather conditions at Sydney played a spoilsport. After the game was halted on the second for a few minutes, the entire third day was abandoned.

“I want to talk to them about it and say what else can we do. Whom can we partner with? How do we work this out? Because what I’m learning quickly is the ICC isn’t doing these things. There’s no one in cricket doing this stuff, so there is a void. And in the absence of someone else doing it, I’m going to call it and say, well, we should do it. Let’s do it,” Greenberg told the Herald and The Age at the SCG on Friday.

The Sydney area had continuous rain beginning early on Friday morning, and the brief breaks in the weather were not long enough for the ground crew to prepare the field to resume the play. After the tea break, the umpires gathered and decided to abandon the day’s play.

“We can’t just sort of sit around and whine about the fact we’re not on the field, we’ve got to find something to do about it. Are we genuinely with research and development trying to find solutions? And if we’re not, the players will get on the front foot and we’ll spend some money, and we’ll do something because we’re got to find some solutions. It’s just not good enough that we weren’t playing,” he added.

Even in the recently concluded test match between Pakistan and New Zealand, the game ended in a draw just three overs before the end of the final day’s play, due to bad light.

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