Pink balls can beat Championship bad light - Malan

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Middlesex 194 (Eskinazi 94, Hogan 5-49, Van der Gugten 4-63) drew with Glamorgan 38 for 4 (Murtagh 4-12)
Scorecard

Middlesex captain Dawid Malan wants the ECB to experiment with a pink ball in the County Championship to prevent more early season washouts.

Only 58 overs were bowled during Middlesex's Division Two clash against Glamorgan at Lord's, with rain on the final morning ensuring the match was abandoned as a draw.

The home of Glamorgan Cricket is to be renamed Sophia Gardens Cardiff after its partnership with its title sponsor SSE ended earlier this year. Sophia Gardens Cardiff, which echoes the name used by the venue from 1967 to 2007 will be used immediately, with the ground currently undergoing a rebranding process.

But Malan feels it could have been a different story with a pink ball in use on the second day, when no play was possible due to overcast conditions - although the Lord's floodlights were switched on.

"We could have had a full day we'd had a pink ball because there was no rain around," said the Middlesex skipper. "We were literally sitting around for four hours of bad light.

"We're lucky that we've got lights now - we never had them before - but we still got hardly any cricket in. It might be worth the ECB looking at using pink balls this time of the year.

"If you have a ball you can use under lights in the pitch black it probably makes sense to use it at that time of the year when you're probably going to lose more cricket, instead of the middle of summer.

"We've been experimenting quite a lot in county cricket over the last eight to nine years, so we might as well throw another one in.

"If it's something that's going to get you on (the field) and it's not an unfair advantage to the bowlers, I think it's worth trying and seeing what happens. You might not lose so much cricket."

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