Pink ball County Championship cricket under floodlights starts today

The latest round of County Championship will be played under floodlights and with a pink ball.

Nine matches, four in Division One and five in Division Two, will start today at 2pm and with a pink Duke ball instead of the normal red one. In August England will take on the West Indies at Edgbaston in the first pink ball Test match to be played under lights in England.

All of England's players have been released by the ECB, under the terms of their central contracts, to take part in this round of matches to prepare them for the Edgbaston Test.

England quick bowler Stuart Broad is one of the players who will be hoping to have the pink ball in his hands to take on the West Indies but he will miss out today against Kent for Nottinghamshire with a heel injury.

Before he was ruled out of the match though he got the opportunity to get his hands on a pink ball in front of Sky's cameras and this was his reaction to his first delivery.

"It actually feels a lovely seam in the hand," he said. "Feels like you can rip down the back of it and I think new ball bowlers will look forward to bowling with this.

That actually seamed a bit I think and it was bounce. The seam just feels lovely coming out of the hand.

"I can't wait, i think it's a great concept. I think it will be interesting to see how the teams play it. Do they go for the twilight period to try and have bowl with the new ball and stuff. Why not try it? It's a great concept. As a bowler it excites me."

What is the Pink Ball?

Like the red Duke ball, the pink ball is dyed leather, just pink instead of red. After the ball has been dyed it has a lacquer or polish coated on to it to help protect the ball.

It's a different polish to the red ball and designed to help protect the ball and allow it to keep it's colour for longer. However players have reported that once the shine rubs off this ball, it's much harder to get it back as with a red ball, by shining one side on players' clothing.

However the pink ball has a more pronounced seam, which means that even after the shine has gone and the ball stops swinging, bowlers can still move the ball off the pitch by landing it on the seam.

It is not the first time a pink ball has been used in England as a County Championship match between Kent and Glamorgan in 2011 was also played under lights and with a pink ball but players said they had issue seeing the ball when day turned to night under the lights.

Since then though their have been pre-season trial games in the UAE between the MCC and the counties as well as a trial game last summer between Warwickshire and Worcestershire, in which the players used both the Duke and Kookaburra balls, preferring the Duke which will be used this week and in the Test match.