DEREK PRINGLE

One day’s play in Essex’s Championship match against Middlesex may not be the kind of sample required by science to draw lasting conclusions, but it is all I had to decide whether or not the pink cricket ball is going to be the saviour of long-form cricket or simply an obsession of MCC.
Let me explain. In an attempt to address dwindling crowds at Test matches, mostly in places like India, West Indies and South Africa, but not yet England and Australia, the MCC have decided the future lies in playing day-night Test cricket. To make it distinct from one-day cri...