Why are cricket balls red, white and pink?

KohakuDid you know that cricket balls come in red, white and pink? How are they used differently, I wonder.

The answer in 30 seconds

The time of day and the colour of the players' clothes are the clues.

The ball's colour is chosen so that it can be seen easily, depending on when the match is played and what the players wear. Red is for daytime Test matches, white is for short formats played in coloured clothing and under lights, and pink is for Test matches played into the night, because it shows up in both daylight and darkness. What decides it is how easy the ball is to see and the colour of the clothes.

A well-used pink cricket ball lying on grass — A pink ball made to be easy to see in night matches. The seam is visible.Photo: Aravind Sivaraj / CC BY-SA 3.0 / Wikimedia Commons

Red balls for daytime Tests

The traditional cricket ball is red, and it is used in daytime Test matches. Players wear white in Test matches, and it is explained that a white ball cannot be used there. A white ball and white clothing would be hard to tell apart.

White balls for short formats

White balls are used in short formats such as 50-over and T20 games. According to the ICC, ideas such as coloured uniforms and night matches spread to international cricket from World Series Cricket, a privately run league that began in 1977. The 1987 World Cup, held in India and Pakistan, was the last tournament played with a red ball and white clothing, and from the 1992 tournament, floodlights, coloured clothing and a white ball were used.

Pink for night matches

When cricket tried to extend daytime matches into the night, the red ball had a problem. It was hard to see under artificial lights, and on cloudy days with the floodlights on, the ball could even look as if it had a tail behind it. A white ball, on the other hand, gets dirty and changes colour quickly. After years of trials, including orange and yellow versions, pink was chosen as the best compromise.

Figure: Ball colors and where they are used

Pink balls in India too

The first official day-night Test in the world was played in Adelaide in 2015 between Australia and New Zealand. India's first day-night Test was played against Bangladesh at Eden Gardens in Kolkata, with pink balls made by the Indian company SG. According to Reuters, because the colour is applied in several layers, a pink ball takes eight days to make while a red ball takes three. Pale pink gets darker as it picks up dust, so a brighter pink was used.

KohakuA pink ball was used in India's first night-time Test match as well, wasn't it?

Want to know more?

The pink ball has a thick coating, and it is said to move more when it is new and during the dim evening hours.
The pink ball was tried in domestic tournaments and one-day matches before it was used in Test matches.
In India, before the day-night Test, Australian-made pink balls were also tried in the domestic Duleep Trophy.

KohakuThe colour is chosen to match how easily the ball can be seen and what the players wear.

Quick quiz: test yourself

What colour ball is used in night Tests?

Show the answer

Red
White
Pink

Pink Red is hard to see under lights and white gets dirty and changes colour quickly, so after years of trials, pink was chosen.

Sources

History of Cricket in the 20th CenturyInternational Cricket Council (ICC)
Shedding light on the pink ballcricket.com.au (Cricket Australia)
Like night and day: why Test cricket changes so much under lightsThe Conversation
India's pink-ball supplier anxious ahead of historic Test (Reuters)Onmanorama (Reuters report)

This article was written after checking the sources above as of 2026-10-03. Explanations may change as research progresses. Photo credits are shown below each photo.