{"id":926217,"date":"2026-10-13T04:28:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-13T04:28:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/926217\/"},"modified":"2026-10-13T04:28:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-13T04:28:11","slug":"cricket-news-2026-bad-light-new-law-pink-ball-allowed-australia-south-africa-called-out-by-shaun-pollock-over-decision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/926217\/","title":{"rendered":"Cricket news 2026: Bad light, new law, pink ball allowed, Australia, South Africa called out by Shaun Pollock over decision"},"content":{"rendered":"

South African<\/a> great Shaun Pollock has called out Australia<\/a> and the Proteas for turning down the newly available, radical option of playing with a pink ball in the Durban Test as an answer to bad light.<\/p>\n

As per a rule introduced by the International Cricket Council (ICC)<\/a> at the start of this month, a pink ball is allowed to be used provided the teams agree before the start of the match.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Travis Head (left) and Pat Cummins in Durban.\u00a0Gerhard Duraan\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

If an agreement is struck, the pink ball must be used for the entire game, and in the case of a match beginning with a red ball, it cannot be substituted out for a pink one.<\/p>\n

Only 221 of the 270 allotted overs were completed over the first three days of the Durban Test, with poor light repeatedly forcing stumps to be called early.<\/p>\n

Despite the substantial loss of overs, a result will almost certainly be reached given Australia set South Africa 421 runs to win and only needs to take another six wickets on day five to secure victory<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But spectators and viewers have nonetheless been robbed of seeing a considerable amount of cricket in the first Test, and there will inevitably be cases where a pink ball is not used and there\u2019s subsequently not enough time for a result to eventuate.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not saying for one moment that we should have used the pink ball and played a day-night game. I just believe we should have used the pink ball for the day game,\u201d Pollock said on the SuperSport broadcast.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a stigma that\u2019s been created around the pink ball. First of all, they say, \u2018Oh, it moves too much\u2019. I tell you what \u2013 if Australia were 6-124 and we were using a pink ball, everyone would have said it was the pink ball\u2019s fault. And then there\u2019s another stigma around it \u2013 the pink ball gets soft. If Australia were 6-124 and got to 390, everyone in South Africa would have said it\u2019s the pink ball\u2019s fault. That it got soft.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the pink ball would have meant that we played 45 more overs of Test cricket yesterday (on day three) if we had used it. That\u2019s why I\u2019m keen to try and introduce it, and not just for day-night games, because in Australia, under the haze of seven to nine o\u2019clock at night, it might seem like it does a bit more.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m saying in a day game, where you know bad light is going to play a part, don\u2019t be scared to use the pink ball.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pollock, who played 108 Tests and is one of South Africa\u2019s greatest-ever cricketers, asked what would happen if the stakes were higher.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf this was a final or a game where you had to reach the World Test Championship final, say it was 1\u20131 in the series, Australia playing South Africa and they had to get a result, and you said to them, \u2018Well, let\u2019s use the pink ball because we\u2019re going to lose 100 overs to bad light\u2019, do you think they\u2019d agree or not agree?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Former Proteas quick Vernon Philander put forward a different view.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Shaun Pollock celebrates removing Phil Jacques in the 2005 Boxing Day Test.\u00a0The Age<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have to take it out of the hands of the players completely and enforce it from the umpires\u2019 point of view that the pink ball will become in play when the light has faded enough,\u201d Philander said on SuperSport.<\/p>\n

“You are always going to have the argument of who is ahead of the game.<\/p>\n

“I would like to see the ICC enforce it on to the officials to make that call.”<\/p>\n

Former Proteas star Ashwell Prince, who now works as an assistant coach in the South African set-up, disagrees with both Pollock and Philander.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, outside of a day-night Test, it\u2019s got to be a red ball,\u201d Prince said when asked for his thoughts at stumps on day three.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think obviously some nations have played a lot more pink-ball cricket than others and so, therefore, to get both captains to agree is always going to be a challenge. To get both captains to agree to that, some teams will feel that they simply don\u2019t have enough experience of it, so I think it\u2019d be very difficult to get both captains to agree.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut for me, Test matches are the red ball.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"South African great Shaun Pollock has called out Australia and the Proteas for turning down the newly available,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":926218,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-926217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/926217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=926217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/926217\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/926218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=926217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=926217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=926217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}