Coloured-ball blind spot stumps night Tests Kookaburra chairman Bruce Thompson with coloured balls. Picture: Graham Crouch Source: The Australian A DAY-NIGHT Test is unlikely to be played any time soon because the worldwide search for a suitable coloured ball appears to have stalled. After taking carriage of trials of various balls two years ago, the ICC has now handed the responsibility back to its member nations -- which have also failed to crack the coloured-ball code. The issue is at a stalemate because while the ICC says it is happy for day-night Tests to be played, it has abandoned coloured-ball trials. "At present there are no plans for further trials by (the) ICC and the onus now for ongoing testing lies with the member boards," an ICC spokesman has told The Australian. But testing in Australia, England, the West Indies and Pakistan has so far failed to find a suitable ball. The ICC last year gave permission for day-night Tests to be played "providing the ball was suitable" and the opposing nations agreed to terms. "At this stage, no one has played a day-night Test," the spokesman said when asked if there had been any developments on the coloured-ball front. Finding a suitable ball -- be it pink, orange or yellow -- has proved to be cricket's equivalent of alchemy after more than five years of fruitless experiments. Ball manufacturers have been unable to make a coloured ball that keeps its shine and is easy to see in twilight and after nightfall. Players involved in trials have said orange and yellow balls, in particular, "flare" in the batsmen's vision. "Orange don't work, pink don't work -- I've never seen anything that comes close," a former player involved in the trials told The Australian this week. A coloured ball is needed because red balls are too hard to see at night and the white balls used in one-day cricket deteriorate too quickly for longer-form cricket. The past player said the administrators should consider using white balls but replace them after 40 or 50 overs. Cricket Australia conducted extensive testing before handing its data and a bag of coloured balls to the ICC to continue with the trials two years ago. As recently as last October, CA chief executive James Sutherland said the ICC had responsibility for the testing but that appears to no longer be the case. "Finding a Test ball that is as easily visible in the day as it is at night is still a technical work in progress that the ICC is now leading, and it has not yet been possible to predict when such a ball might be available," Sutherland said at the time. In ceding responsibility for the trials to world cricket's governing body, CA reasoned the "very expensive" testing program should be an ICC responsibility. "We ran a program for a number of years under (former general manager) Michael Brown," CA's strategic communications adviser Peter Young told The Australian. We haven't been doing much research on it since the Michael Brown project (and are) not actively running a coloured-ball research program. There is much at stake as the Seven and Nine networks jostle for the broadcast rights when Nine's contract expires next month. Day-night Tests would draw greater audiences as much of the play would be on TV when fans arrive home from work or school. So including day-night Tests in the scheduling will greatly influence the price paid by the successful bidder. "Finding the right ball is still necessary before that can be done," Young said of the chance of day-night Tests being factored into the television deal. Given the TV rights are expected to be finalised by the middle of the year, the prospect of day-night Tests being played in upcoming series appears a forlorn hope.