HAMPSHIRE director of cricket Giles White is “intrigued” by the first day/night Specsavers County Championship match to be played at The Ageas Bowl.

All nine Championship matches start at 2pm tomorrow, with pink balls used for the first time as the England and Wales Cricket Board tries to attract a new audience to its first-class competition.

Hampshire used the pink Kookaburra ball for the first time earlier this month, albeit with a much-changed side missing Kyle Abbott and Gareth Berg, in their 251-run defeat against South Africa A at The Ageas Bowl.

“The seam’s more pronounced but it didn’t swing an awful lot and there wasn’t much seam movement,” said White.

“We expected it to do a bit more in the evening twilight so it’ll be interesting to see how it goes.

“The overhead conditions will play a part it may be more seam dominant because of the time we’re playing.

“But the intriguing thing for us will be seeing if it attracts more supporters.

“Hopefully we’ll see a few come in after work. Compared to other first-class competitions around the world it’s well followed, especially online, and relatively speaking our crowds aren’t too bad.

“But the timings obviously limit how much people can come. Whether there’s longevity in it, we’ll see. It’ll certainly be interesting.”

Hampshire’s players had Friday off after their innings-and-30-run defeat against Lancashire at Old Trafford, but practised with the pink ball last night and will do so again this evening as they prepare for playing three hours later than usual.

“We practised in the evenings over the weekend to get used to how the ball behaves at those times,”explained White.

“The boys will need to lie in each morning as much as possible because they are long days, but the body clocks won’t always allow that.

“It’s often difficult to switch off after a floodlit limited-overs game with the adrenaline still going but hopefully we’ll get into a pattern.”

Somerset have had longer to prepare for the change after a week off, but Hampshire will be determined to respond as well to their Old Trafford defeat as they did when they were thrashed at Essex last month.

“The way we played in Manchester was disappointing on the back of two good wins,” added White.

“We’ve struggled a bit with the bat and found ourselves in a precarious position.

“Kyle Abbott and Gareth Berg have been fantastic and dug us out of trouble but we need to get everyone contributing throughout.”