The pink cricket ball experiment went without obvious hitch at Lord's yesterday but it is the proscription of chuckers and superbats that the MCC are really out to nail with the research and development programme they are undertaking with Imperial College, London.

Chucking is arguably the most emotive issue in cricket and one many feel has not been properly addressed by the International Cricket Council.

Instead of supporting umpires who wanted to uphold the old law by calling no-ball against bowlers they suspected of bending their elbows beyond acceptable limits (as Darrell Hair once did with Muttiah Muralitharan), the ICC simply increased the angle of tolerance to 15 degrees.

Through their work with Imperial College, MCC are hoping to produce a technology that can be worn by bowlers in matches without impinging on their action. John Stephenson, MCC's head of cricket and yesterday's captain in the pink ball trial against Scotland, is hoping that enough data can be collected in time for the general rewrite of the Laws in three years' time.

"Instead of banning suspected bowlers or sending them away for remedial action, they put these sensors on and play," said Stephenson at Lord's yesterday. "Then we come back to the true definition of the law which allows umpires to call bowlers when they infringe."

If that technology is some way from being perfected, and accepted, Law 6, which defines the bat, has already been redrafted with special detail regarding the handle, which must be composed solely of cane, rubber and adhesive. With modern bats seemingly hitting the ball ever further, limits need to be applied, and the rewrite needs only the MCC members' consent on May 7 to be passed.

"There has been a general concern about the balance between bat and ball for a while," said Stephenson, who helped set up MCC's world cricket committee, a body including Steve Waugh as well as current players such as Rahul Dravid and Anil Kumble. "MCC is the conscience of the game and wants to make sure that balance is retained."

According to Dr Anthony Bull, a bio- and mechanical engineer at Imperial College, cricket balls could be hit 20 per cent further with just a few tweaks to bat technology within the current regulations. "The question is whether you want to allow that," said Bull. "What we're trying to discover is how we might do that within the law and then how we might ameliorate against that by changing the wording of the law."

MCC are setting up a bat approval system, with Imperial as a testing centre. "We won't test every bat, just new ranges and those that invite suspicion," said Stephenson. "Umpires will need to be vigilant though."

As for the pink ball, it looked like one of those DayGlo golf balls hackers get out during winter months. It was easy to see from the boundary though MCC's Darren Bicknell, whose 132 helped his team overhaul Scotland's 253 for seven, felt it was no more visible than a newish white ball.

But the players' views are irrelevant. It is how visible it is on television under floodlights that will ultimately decide whether it has a future.

Courtesy -The Island