To combat fading lights, Australia’s cricketers want to develop a ‘bad-light’ ball

Australian Cricketers’ Association chief executive Todd Greenberg on Friday revealed that Australia’s players are eager to develop a ball that will allow Test cricket to continue during fading light. Greenberg said will talk to Cricket Australia about the possibility of a joint venture.
“I want to talk to them about it and say what else can we do?” Greenberg told the Herald and The Age at the SCG on Friday.
“Who can we partner with? How do we work this out? Because what I’m learning quickly is the ICC aren’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.
“We can’t just sort of sit around and whinge 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.”
Consent rain swept through the Sydney area from early Friday morning and the gaps in the rainfall where not sufficient for ground staff to prepare the field and the match to resume. Shortly after the scheduled tea break, umpires abandoned the day’s play.
Former Australia cricketer Kerry O’Keeffe, who is part of the Fox Sports commentary panel, said: “Sometimes it can give you a false impression of how dark it is. But this is the reading for the rest of the game, in the middle of the afternoon.”
Mark Waugh too felt that light was sufficient for the match to be continued. “I’d like to change the rules. I’m saying once the lights are on we stay on, simple as that,” Waugh said on Fox Cricket.
Steve Waugh on his Instagram too had highlighted the widespread criticism around the lack of play on day one because of bad light.

“Test cricket needs to realise there is a lot of competition out there and not using the lights when the players are off for bad light simply doesn’t add up,” the former Australia captain said on Instagram during Wednesday. “Lots of unhappy spectators who can’t understand the rationale and reason for no play. #commonsense #movewiththetimes @icc @cricketaustralia,” wrote Waugh Sr.
“It is funny in the game we play that you change it to a pink ball and we keep going. It’s just the nature of the beast,” said former South Africa captain Shaun Pollock.