Playing with the 'pink ball' could be difficult for colour blind cricketers

Mumbai: While the questions have been raised about the visibility of the pink ball, former Pakistani opening batsman and right-arm medium pacer Mudassar Nazar opines that the problem can only persist with the colour blind cricketers.  

Nazar himself was a colour-blind cricketer by birth and had difficulty in seeing red and green colours.

Speaking exclusively over the telephone, the 63-year-old Nazar, who holds the record of scoring the slowest Test century (557 minutes, against England at Lahore in 1977-78) said, "I would not have any problem with seeing the pink ball. All I can say is that if there are cricketers who cannot see the pink ball properly then they will find it very tough. Having said that, a lot of cricketers like Bill Ponsford had great careers. I was told he also could not see red and green."

"Just one more thing. I did not have a great problem in Australia as they had big and tall sight screens. I had huge problems in Sharjah if the bowlers were operating from the far end with the red ball. Later on, it eased when we started using the white ball," he added.

"People often ask how could then I used to play with the Red ball for so long. Well, I would say with a lot of difficulties. Once the bowler released ball then I would lose it till it pitched. Curtly Ambrose used to have a field day with me. Every time he bowled a Yorker to me, he cleaned me out. He used to think he would surprise me by setting me up and then York me after a while. Little did he know that he could have done it with the very first ball. I also had a problem in picking up the ball in the deep in a certain light towards the end of the last session of the play".

"I believe there are now glasses available for colour blind. Whether they are of any value I do not know because I have not used them", he further added.

Interestingly, Ian Botham, Brad Hodge, Chris Rogers, Matthew Wade and Gary Ballance are the other known colour blind cricketers.

"In 1994, the British Medical Journal published research conducted on differences in batting average of colour-blind batsmen from those who were not colour blind, and found no significant role of the condition", says Harbinger Ora, one of the regulars on cricket statistician Ask Steven page.

"It would perhaps be imperative to have another worldwide study in light of the pink-ball Tests. It might lead to the selection of a different eleven packed with colour-blind players for D/N matches per country in case the pink ball findings suggest", he said.