NEW DELHI: India’s experiment with the pink ball in the Duleep Trophy domestic championship met with major embarrassment after floodlight failure interrupted play for over an hour in the day-night match on Tuesday.

The Duleep Trophy, a four-day triangular competition which traditionally heralds the start of the Indian cricket season, is seen as a possible precursor to day-night Tests in cricket’s biggest market.

But the first match on the outskirts of New Delhi witnessed three of the six light towers go out twice in the post-dinner session, forcing the players to leave the field.

The first interruption happened just after the dinner interval when play was delayed by 17 minutes due to insufficient light while the second break stretched to about 50 minutes.

The organisers refused to answer any queries after the fiasco as play carried on well past 9:00pm, the original time for end of play.

“There was some problem in the main electrical circuit of the floodlights, which was tripping,” a ground official said on condition of anonymity.

India had been expected to stage their first day-night Test during a tour by New Zealand starting next month. But the plans were shelved to give more time for trials of the pink Kookaburra ball.

Published in Dawn, August 24th, 2016