There may be outrage at Lord’s with the news that MCC is involved in ball-tampering. This is not, however, a case of seam-picking or dirt-rubbing, but a trial given to a change of colour. The traditional red ball could be replaced by one of a more visible hue. Pink, to be precise, and fluorescent pink at that.

The hope is that a pink ball will be more easily seen by a batsman than the customary dark red one, particularly in poor light. A luminous ball may appeal to anyone coming to the crease in such circumstances. Experimentation in the indoor school at Lord’s will indicate whether a fluorescent ball can be spotted a fraction of a second earlier; doubtless bowlers will continue to grumble that it always was a batsman’s game.

Scientists at Imperial College in London will be working during the winter on developing this new projectile, which will be used in university and second XI matches at the start of next season and, depending on whether it retains its colour, in county cricket the next summer. The aim is then to use it in one-day internationals.

This innovation is down to John Stephenson, MCC’s head of cricket and a former opening batsman, with Essex, Hampshire and, for one Test, England. The club still has responsibility for the laws of the game and has been researching different coloured balls for the past year. “Paint tends to flake off white balls and we have asked Kookaburra to produce a batch of pink ones because these show up so much better,” Stephenson said. “The challenge is to produce a ball which retains its colour – I doubt it will be any more expensive to produce or buy. I have asked Mike Gatting, the ECB’s managing director of cricket partnerships, to use them in county second XI one-day matches, but we shall start by trying them in fixtures such as MCC v Europe and in the university matches we sponsor.”

The two former England batsmen met to discuss this at Lord’s last week. “My aim would be to use the pink ball in Twenty20 cricket in 2009 and thereafter in one-day international cricket, but this will be dependent on trials and what the ECB thinks,” Stephenson said.

Kookaburra, the ball manufacturer, has developed a batch of pink balls in Australia, which will be used in women’s cricket this winter. The properties are the same as in traditional balls, but its initial tests have shown that they have deteriorated too quickly for its liking.

“We must always push the game forward and ensure we have the right equipment,” Gatting said. “We have tried white and orange balls and perhaps pink ones will last longer. This is a very interesting and very wise development and a colour might have been found that is easier on the eye.”

Gatting can vouch for the fact that traditional red balls can be hard to see. The former England captain had his nose broken by a ball from Malcolm Marshall, the former West Indies fast bowler, in a one-day international in Kingston in 1986. A pink ball may have spared him the pain, and the two black eyes.

He added: “We are trying to make cricket a better game for the players and television and have got past looking at it from a traditionalist’s view.”

MCC’s cricket committee, which met last week, expressed its enthusiasm for pink balls, which scientists are testing to see if they will show up better on television than orange balls, which left a comet trail in the dark. “

The scientists have tried to find a means of impregnating the raw leather hide with bleach that stays inside the ball,” Stephenson said. “The scientists’ conclusion with white balls was to inject the leather with titanium dioxide particles using a paraffin wax or similar technique. The scientists are trying to find a way of preventing the grass discolouring the ball, white or pink.”

Potting the colours

— White balls were first used in the sport when Kerry Packer introduced floodlights at the Sydney Cricket Ground during the second year of World Series Cricket in 1978-79

— Experiments with orange balls began in the Refuge Assurance Cup in domestic cricket in England in 1989, but television companies found that the balls did not show up properly in day-night matches

— A blue ball was once designed for women’s cricket, but was discontinued

Brett Lee, the fast bowler, finished with four second-innings wickets and eight in the match as Australia beat Sri Lanka by an innings and 40 runs in the first Test in Brisbane.

Despite two stoppages for rain on the fifth morning and stubborn resistance from Chamara Silva, who scored 43, Sri Lanka were all out for 300 when Stuart Clark bowled Muttiah Muralitharan for four.

The second and final Test of the series starts on Friday at Hobart, with Muralitharan, now on 702 wickets, needing a further seven to pass Shane Warne as the leading wicket-taker in Tests.