Papps cautious on pink-ball matches
You would think Michael Papps would want to play with a pink ball every week.
After all, the Wellington captain cracked his first first-class century since December 2015 when smacking the fluorescent coloured ball to all parts of Westpac Stadium on day one of their day-night Plunket Shield match against Otago on Monday.
But come Thursday, Papps’ side had suffered through a frustrating final day in the field, where the ball did little in the air, having shown no signs of reverse swing in the match.
That allowed Otago to bat for most of the day to score 304, enough to draw the match. Wellington scored 302-8 in their first innings, rain washed out day two, Otago were rolled for 98 on day three and started day four on 59-4.
Considering the other two games of the round were rained out and that Papps has 174 firstclass matches to his name, the 37-year-old was about as qualified as they come to assess how well the experimental round had gone.
‘‘The jury is still out. It was an enjoyable experience to play this type of cricket, everyone embraced it and gave it their best shot and took it for what it is, but it is quite different to playing a proper fourday match that you’d normally play.
‘‘I wouldn’t say it’s the easiest things at times, with the changing conditions throughout the day making it quite different to a normal first-class match.’’
That last part echoed the sentiments of Black Caps captain Kane Williamson, who told Cricinfo in the leadup to the first test against South Africa in Dunedin that day-night test matches may need to be considered as a different format to day tests.
Papps said the main point of debate remained the pink ball.
‘‘I don’t think the guys are 100 per cent convinced about the pink ball. It has its moments when it’s quite difficult to pick up.
‘‘Early on it’s fine, no different to a white ball to pick up, but getting into that twilight time, that change from natural to artificial light was quite difficult. Then for the new guys going in during that time it is quite difficult to pick up the ball early on.’’
It also gave less assistance to the bowlers than the red ball, he said.
‘‘It just seems a slightly different type of ball, just the way it deteriorates is a little bit different. The lacquer sort of cracks on it rather than coming off and you can’t really get a shine or a buff on it like you can with a red ball.
‘‘It gets a few scuff marks, but probably the biggest thing is not being able to get a shine or a buff on it, I guess they’ll keep working to improve that.’’
Papps said with a bit of tinkering day-night four-day matches would have their place in domestic cricket.