This is a rare episode in which we’re discussing sports but we’re taking a slightly different tack today - we’re going to look at the science behind why a cricket ball swings and use the opportunity to highlight some really interesting research that‘s been happening in this area.

Our immediate motivation, of course, is the day night test match currently underway between India and Australia that’s being played with a pink ball. The pink ball is, of course, relatively novel in cricket and there’s still a lot of curiosity and attempts to understand how it behaves differently to the red and white ball. So, while we address the pink ball in the course of the conversation today, we don’t restrict ourselves to it. We talk overall about the general mechanics of swing and the various factors that affect it.

Our guest today, Professor Sanjay Mittal teaches at the Department of Aerospace Engineering at IIT Kanpur and for the past several years he has been leading a team of researchers conducting experiments to understand the physics governing the swing of a cricket ball.

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