Australian captain Steve Smith says he had trouble viewing the seam of the experimental pink ball after facing it for the first time in a match.
Smith made 67 batting for NSW against South Australia on Wednesday in a Sheffield Shield game at Adelaide Oval - the venue for the inaugural day-night Test late next month.
The entirety of Smith's innings was played in daylight.
But when night fell, so did the wickets - nine of them in the final session of play.
"I found it quite hard to see the seam," Smith told reporters after play.
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"I found it quite hard to tell when the bowler was sort of trying to swing it a certain way, or sometimes with the spinners, it was a bit hard to pick up."
Overall, Smith thought the pink balls "played quite well".
And he wasn't rushing to judge them on the spate of final-session wickets - SA claimed six before NSW took three, including two for Test quick Mitchell Starc, who gained considerable swing.
"It's hard to take a gauge," Smith said.
"We have seen Starcy do that the past three weeks, he has been knocking blokes over like that the last three weeks, so it's actually hard to take a gauge on it at this stage."
Smith noted the ball also swung early for SA's bowlers.
"They had the ball swinging for about the first hour-and-a-half," he said.
"I haven't really had a chat to the boys just yet, whether they thought it was responding any differently (at night) and I haven't batted under the lights yet with the pink ball, so I can't really make a big judgment on it.
"But it looked like it held together quite well throughout the day, probably a lot better than it did on the more abrasive surface of Canberra, so that is I guess good signs."
Philosophically, Smith backed the pink ball experiment for Test cricket.
"I think it's exciting, particularly if it's bringing crowds," he said.
"I think today we saw a thousand-odd people. It's probably the most I have seen for a Shield game in a long time.
"So that is the start of it and I'm sure Test cricket will be no different."
