England v Pakistan 2020.

[sussexpob]

More rain.

Nailed on draw unless England do a 60 all out job...

Rain all tomorrow too. May as well give the players a day off and call the whole thing off. Zero point playing on.

If they do get a few hours, two sporting declarations and a lowish target in few overs might salvage some interest

[Durhamfootman]

two sporting declarations and a lowish target in few overs might salvage some interest

whilst simultaneously preserving the integrity of the game

[bigfluffylemon]

Yawn. Bets when match will be abandoned?

[Arthur Crabtree]

Southampton's record for rain during Tests is surprising. There's cricket being played across the country in the CC.

[sussexpob]

Maybe they should have a rule based on cancelling tests after a certain point, if the game hasnt progressed. Would make more sense for everyone to have called this off today with 31 wickets needed for a result, and if play is possible, play a one off ODI or T20 in its place

[bigfluffylemon]

Maybe they should have a rule based on cancelling tests after a certain point, if the game hasnt progressed. Would make more sense for everyone to have called this off today with 31 wickets needed for a result, and if play is possible, play a one off ODI or T20 in its place

Would you really want to watch the likes of Sibley and Shafiq block their way through an ODI?

[Arthur Crabtree]

England's T20 side to play Pakistan.

Eoin Morgan (capt), Moeen Ali, Jonny Bairstow (wk), Tom Banton, Sam Billings (wk), Tom Curran, Joe Denly, Lewis Gregory, Chris Jordan, Saqib Mahmood, Dawid Malan, Adil Rashid, Jason Roy, David Willey. Reserves: Pat Brown, Liam Livingstone, Reece Topley.

[Arthur Crabtree]

One game will be live on BBC.

[sussexpob]

There is an article on the BBC website about how to solve bad light. Aggers thinks its down to technology and that the lights at the Rose Bowl werent bright enough and need investment.

Correct me if I am wrong but the Rose Bowl has hosted full international day/night games. If the lights are bright enough to illuminate pitch dark to the point of no problems, then why would the light be insufficient?

My belief is, or was judging on past comments, that if the full floodlights are required to be on during the day the game has to be stopped for bad light. The umpires cant utilise full lights to be on, only partially on to boost natural light.

If we can play games in the pitch dark, then there is no reason. This is not a capacity issue, its the ICCs rules.

[westoelad]

Yes but the day/night internationals were played with a white ball. The most relevant comments on the issue come from past internationals like Knight and Gooch who've stated that they never had issues with sighting the ball in fading light.
Your eyes adjust as the light fades and that applies to batsmen, fielders and umpires. I'f you're about to bat you sit outside to adjust to the light.
There has been a knee jerk reaction to the issue i.m.o.

[sussexpob]

Yes but the day/night internationals were played with a white ball.

When the pink ball debuted, there was a kick back from scientific academics about its safety, based on the fact that the ball is visible in different light conditions for different reasons. People are able to distinguish the ball in daylight because its colour is much darker than its surrounds, and in the night time because the lacquer is shining and reflects the light, making it brighter. Peoples eyesight works on that contrast between the colour of objects. Which lead to a pretty uncomfortable conclusion that at some point in transferring between being darker and lighter, there would be a point (identified around sunset) where the ball is neither lighter or darker, and there is no luminescence contrast. I think some BD batsman and Pujara complained that the ball became impossible to pick at sunset.

The red ball works by always being darker than its surroundings. If the study I read is true, and it was done by some Professor at a leading Aussie University so I have no grounds to doubt it, testing shows that the red ball retains a colour contrast with its surroundings at pretty much a constant level in all the hours leading to complete darkness, only around 10 minutes to sunset does the light level make its colour melt into the background. After this point, its terrible, hence it cant be used in day/night matches because its invisible in the night sky. But before that, even in Lux levels that are akin to near total darkness, it retains contrast to very near complete darkness.

What is the role of floodlights in these situations? They add light and make it brighter. A red ball on a straw coloured surface that has a bright light shined on it directly will have the effect of the pitch being lighter, and that will contrast positively with the dark ball, making it have no problems being seen. And if the testss above are true, the contrast of ball to sky/crowd etc is maintained in very low levels of light.

So the choice of ball colour seemingly has very little relevance. There seems little justification in stopping play in failing light unless that light is akin to twilight levels, which lets face it, it never is during the day even if an ungodly black sky and thunderstorm arrive.... the lux levels are still going to be 10 times more than Twilight.

As a side point, due to the relative contrast in colours of ball/its surrounds, white balls are infinitely more visible in daylight than the red ball too. In fact, if someone could find a way to make the white ball last 80 overs, id expect it becomes the standard moving forward. The red ball itself is nowhere near the best colour for visibility because of a generally low contrast with other colours, and being the colour most associated with colour blindness. Coloured golf balls are becoming a thing, in recent testing I think red was 7th most visible, even blue and green (sky and grass coloured) came out better.

[sussexpob]

The most relevant comments on the issue come from past internationals like Knight and Gooch who've stated that they never had issues with sighting the ball in fading light

Indeed, which goes with what I am saying. Do cricketers really struggle to pick up the ball in full day time regardless of how much light there is? Evidence suggests this shouldnt be a problem. Its not the light but the colour contrast that dictates it. If colour contrast is maintained till sunset, then people can see the ball inside the normal cut off points for timing of play.

Which begs the question why are the rules like they are? Its not a knee jerk to ask why the current system has zero relevance to the science involved. An umpire is making an assessment measuring the lux levels, but there is zero standard to base that decision on for a start so why are they even bothering, and zero credibility that above a lux threshold, it makes any difference to how someone sees the movement, speed or depth of the ball.

If the colour contrast of the ball changes at 30 Lux, when the sky is in twilight, then even the most overcast day sky would be 10 times brighter than that. With floodlights, even more so. The ICC need to pull their finger out and actually get a few scientists to map this out for them. And not pander to idiots like Aggers who writes crap articles blaming light technology like some idiot who cant even be bothered to do 5 minutes research into it.

[westoelad]

That's very interesting, thank you. I notice, however, that already steps are being taken to alleviate the light problem. Umpires appear to be instructed to lower the reading for curtailment of play and being more flexible regarding hours of play. Appears a sensible adjustment rather than major adjustments. Umpires needed further guidelines and they appear to have been given them.

[sussexpob]

Wonder how the Flexibility of play times will go down with btoadcasters, who probably won't want to block out massive time slots for possible play times. Changing rules on session times would be good. We seen last test on one day they came out for 10 minutes then had tea ....then it rained before tea finished

[westoelad]

Wonder how the Flexibility of play times will go down with btoadcasters, who probably won't want to block out massive time slots for possible play times. Changing rules on session times would be good. We seen last test on one day they came out for 10 minutes then had tea ....then it rained before tea finished

Don't think it'll bother the broadcasters one iota. They fill in the hours before and after play with recorded highlights anyway.