Balls are having a moment. Usually they’re just … there. Nobody thinks about them much. Truth is, they’re usually treated poorly. Scuffed. Bashed. Rubbed the wrong way. Abused. Hit out of sight. Now they’re asserting themselves. A noun has become an adjective. Balls define people.

Take cricketers. Consider the men playing a Test match in Perth. This is a significant event in the Australian summer cricket season: the start of the highest level of red-ball games. Not to be confused with white-ball games, as featured recently in the World Cup. Look closely at the chaps on your TV screen: not all the players who starred in India have reappeared in Perth.

The colour of cricket balls prompts much discussion these days.Credit: Istock

Glenn Maxwell, for example, would love to play Tests but has been pigeon-holed as a white-ball man. Usman Khawaja is the opposite: indispensable as an opener against red balls in Perth; services not required in India. To further confuse things, Australia’s men play a pink-ball Test against the West Indies late in January.

That Test, at the Gabba in Brisbane, starts later in the day, with final sessions played at night. It is thus a hybrid of red- and white-ball games – hence a pink pill. Cricket tragics have declared this ball has unique characteristics, especially under........

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