Interesting to see how old pink ball behaves with dew around: Kohli

The pink ball swings more than the red one but how it would behave after getting old, especially when dew will be a factor, is keeping India skipper Virat Kohli intrigued ahead of team’s historic day-night Test against Bangladesh.The pink ball Test is still a few days away but Kohli, on the eve of the series-opener, was busy answering questions related to the second Test starting November 22.”I think it’s a new way to bring excitement to Test cricket. The pink ball I played yesterday, I felt it swings a lot more as compared to the red ball because there’s extra lacquer (quote of paint) on the ball which doesn’t go away too fast. And the seam holds upright quite a bit,” the skipper’s initial observation seemed in sync with what his deputy Ajinkya Rahane had assessed.Kohli said they are yet to figure out how the old ball will behave during November evenings in Kolkata.”If the pitch has extra help for the bowlers, then they will be in the game, especially fast bowlers throughout the course of the Test match. I don’t know how the old ball behaves because with the dew and the lacquer going off, it will be interesting to see how much the old ball does,” the skipper said.However he made it clear that for a pink ball to be effective, it is important to have lively tracks.”With the pink ball having enough life in the pitch will be very important factor.”The Indian team did not practice with the pink ball under lights but did take a few throw-downs on Tuesday to adjust to the colour of the new ball.”I hadn’t played with the pink ball before. I was given an opportunity to try and I wanted to. So that was my mind-set behind playing with the pink ball. You require extra concentration to pick the pink ball suddenly when you’re playing with the red ball.”It was to work on the reflexes a little bit as well. Because when you play with the red ball in the net and you arrive at the pink ball, it gets very difficult to pick, which can be the case in the game as well. To get into that zone was the reason behind it,” he explained. The skipper also maintained that while the hype about the day-night Test is understandable, the focus of his team is firmly on the first game. A testimony to that was no ‘pink ball’ training on the eve of the match.