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.
"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."
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