What Is The Pink Ball In Cricket And How It’s Different From The Red And White Ones?

As it has been pointed out by Paras, the SG Pink sits right between the red and white ball technologies. For understanding the notion more, we will first have to understand its manufacturing processes that are of the respective ball categories. When we talk about the Red ball, SG use dyed leather (just like dyeing a fabric) is used to bring out the bright red colour of the ball. Also apart from this, the ball which is red is also known for its more pronounced seam (because of its hand-stitching process). In comparison to this the white ball seam is intentionally kept but is not that prominent as in the words of Paras, "you won't be able to hit more sixes in the shorter formats as it's a batsman's game".

This hardened seam ensures not only pace bowlers to utilize reverse-swing once the ball gets old, moreover it also helps finger-spinners for getting a firm grip on the ball that is required to impart the revolutions they will be needing to extract maximum turn from the pitch.

But when it comes to the pink ball, dyeing the leather doesn't work as lighter colour doesn't absorb very well into the leather. This has induced SG to go for the process of pigmentation (covering fully the leather with colour coating) - a process which is similar to what is applied for the white balls.

Explaining this further Paras adds: for the red ball, they have used dyed leather and their key feature is prominent seam and the fact that bowlers are enabled to reverse-swing with the seam helping all the spinners also in the number of revolutions they will get. On the account of white ball, the seam is not so prominent as one won't be able to hit more sixes in the shorter formats as it's a batsman's game. But the colour white is again the pigment process as used in the pink ball.

By: Prerana Sharma

Content: https://www.indiatoday.in/sports/cricket/story/india-vs-bangladesh-2nd-test-day-night-sg-pink-ball-faqs-kookaburra-dukes-eden-gardens-1618539-2019-11-13