CHENNAI: On Saturday morning, around 9.40 am IST to be precise, the Indian team was in a good position in the Adelaide Test. The visitors were leading by 69 runs and had nine second-innings wickets. But the hosts had one weapon in their hands, quite literally: the new pink ball. It was 48 balls old when Jasprit Bumrah's checked defence was breached by Pat Cummins. Now, both Cummins and Josh Hazlewood aren't what you would call express pace bowlers, but they are two of the modern masters in the art of seam and swing bowling.
The new pink ball tends to do a bit but the why has always been a mystery.
To understand why the new pink ball does it, and the other behavioural theories around it, The New Indian Express spoke to Dr Rabindra Mehta, who works as an experimental aerodynamic scientist at NASA. He also moonlights as an aerodynamics consultant with several sporting companies in tennis, golf and cricket. Mehta, who lives near San Francisco, rubbished a few of the more popular pink-ball theories. Excerpts:
Is it just perception or does the pink ball do more than the red ball?
From what I have read and seen, the internal structure (core and the way they put it together) is the same in all three (the white, red and pink balls are all made by Kookaburra). The difference is leather, which is essentially white, but with the red and the pink, they actually paint or dye them. With the pink, from what I have read, they put an extra coat of that dye to ensure that you can see it. They used to do it with the white ball too, especially the Dukes. As far as the pink ball is concerned, they put a lacquer on top of the pink paint or dye. I can believe that initially you can get some help from that because the extra layer of paint will tend to cover up the internal stitching or what we call the secondary seam.
Can you elaborate?
The balls are made of four pieces, right? I mean, they do have two-piece balls but they are not used in first-class cricket. When you look at the balls, you have the main seam, the stitching, and going across perpendicular to it on the two sides, you can see a line which is the internal stitching. That produces a slight roughness. If you can cover up that roughness, it becomes more like a two-piece ball. That two-piece ball will swing more than a four-piece ball. So I can believe that initially, it swings more. But all the other perceptions of the pink ball I believe are just plain rubbish, including this theory that it swings more during the twilight session. One thing I can believe is if they say it's a bit harder to see in the twilight period between the sun setting and the lights taking effect. That is a possibility. But as far as the ball and its properties are concerned, that's not going to change with respect to the weather conditions. I have written many, many articles and have said categorically that the weather has no effect on swing. The key is to release the ball properly. The other thing I would like to say is as a swing bowler, you should be able to swing just about any new ball.
On the seam of the Kookaburra ball
It is pretty flat as compared to the Dukes or even the SG. When it's kinda flat to start with, it flattens even more during play... you need the seam to get conventional and reverse swing. Obviously, when you are smart, you create a contrast in surface roughness, meaning you let one side get rough enough and the other side shiny. In such a situation you don't need the seam, with the roughness you should be able to swing it.
On his studies with the ball
I haven't personally done any studies with the pink ball. My research was done way back when we didn't have different coloured balls. But I have seen them, looked at them, talked to people, coaches, experts, players... you know when you talk to them, you get different opinions. It's kinda hard to go by that. From what I know, the ball isn't much different from the other Kookaburra balls. This extra layer that helps to make it last longer, that's one of the problems you know. If you have the Kookaburra white ball in Test match cricket, after about 20 overs, the ball is going to be completely gone. This whole thing started way back in the early 2000s. But I don't think it's fair to say that the pink ball will play a role in terms of the swing. If you watched the IPL, there was all this talk about the ground in Abu Dhabi being more conducive to swing. That was all rubbish. Good swing bowlers were able to swing it in those three grounds.
When the ball swings and when it's nice and shiny, nobody says anything. When it doesn't suit their theory, they won't say anything.