Cricket with empty stands: Ireland raises white ball visibility issues

Cricket is finally back and the things are going well so far with the West Indies and England series.

Now, there is an unusual problem with Ireland. The team will taken on England for three-match ODI soon. The Ireland team was out there for practice and they had an intra-squad match recently.

Talking about the match, the team raised “visibility issues” with white ball. Since the empty stands are also cream white, the players had difficulty in spotting the ball.

“The thing that’s a little bit of a concern is the background,” Graham Ford, Ireland’s head coach, said in a virtual press conference on Friday.

“The seating is either cream or white, and you’ve got a white ball and an empty stadium, so that background for fielders might be a challenge,” he added.

Andy Balbirnie, the captain, hopes that the players will be adapting to the situation soon.

“It can be tricky: a white ball on cream and white seats will be tricky, but we’ve got enough time to make sure we can’t use that as an excuse,” he said.

All the three matches will be day-night matches and the teams might have difficulties only during the first innings.

Talking about the preparations, Balbirnie accepted that the team will be going in as underdogs, however, he said that since England will be missing players like Stokes and Buttler who are on Test duty, early wickets can prove costly for them, he said.

Ireland and England will be playing all the three matches at Ageas Bowl where the team is currently staying. While the visibility wasn’t an issue when England took on West Indies for the Test, it will be interesting to see how it works with the white ball.