PINK BALL LEAVES STEWART NOT SO PERKY

ALEC STEWART led English cricket out of the dark ages but is not tickled pink by the ball for today’s inaugural day/night Test at Edgbaston.

He played in England’s first floodlit one-day internationals at home in 2000, when illumination was provided by clusters of bulbs aboard cranes perched on the back of a lorry.

Stewart was captain when they made such short work of Zimbabwe at Old Trafford the lights were not even needed.

But he had reservations about their quality, despite scoring a century in a 52-run defeat of Zimbabwe at Edgbaston five days later – and is unsure about the pink balls Jimmy Anderson (right) and Stuart Broad must use over the next five days.

Surrey director of cricket Stewart said: “The differences between the lights now and the ones 17 years ago are chalk and cheese.

“You can understand why English cricket was keen to experiment because floodlights had been up and running in other countries for 10 or 15 years but, looking back, half a dozen small pylons on cranes was stupid. We called it floodlit cricket, but in reality it was more like street-lamp cricket. “Batting was not a major issue, but depth perception – trying to judge a ball coming out of the sky or from the boundary – was the biggest problem. Some of it was almost guesswork. ”But the standard of lights has gone up massively. My biggest reservation about this day/night Test will be the ball. Surrey played in a four-day game using the pink ball at Headingley, where it did plenty in the first 20 overs and then not a lot for any type of bowler.

“The other question I’d ask is whether we need day/night matches to make Test cricket more attractive. We still sell out, or nearly sell out, the first four days of every Test in a major series.”