It was the facelift Test cricket yearned for. The pink ball a suitable prescription to cure wilting fan interest that has for years plagued the sustainability of the game’s most ancient format.
The days of Brian Lara’s awe-inspiring innings captivating spectator attention has been replaced by razzle-dazzle T20 ‘entertainment’. Fans simply no longer have an interest in enduring the qualities of guile, grit and determination that are synonyms with the red ball game.
Their interests have instead been swayed by a generous helping of franchise cricket, complementing an appetite for six hitting, music and ‘rocket men’.
A modern generation cricket fan adores the aesthetics, the ‘carnival like’ atmosphere that goes hand in hand with T20.
So, did the Cinderella story witnessed under the bright lights of the Adelaide Oval revive Test Cricket’s relevance among T20 hysteria? Or have we simply added a further novelty to an already over-revolutionised game?
More cricket
» Australia still can win SCG Test
» Shooting the Gayle-farce breeze
» Why Cricket Australia had to cancel Bangladesh tour
» Poor wicketkeeping the source of Lyon’s early woes
» Test cricket still has a pulse
Like a large majority of the cricketing fraternity, I had my qualms over whether or not a day-night Test could progress the format without tarnishing its great historical worth. Of course, this is still yet to be seen, but if 120,000 fans are anything to go by, it seems Test cricket is set to retire under crimson setting skies.
It had everything. In the words of the Twelfth Man and Bill Lawry ‘the tension, the drama, the buzz, the crowd, the atmosphere’ was all there.
It’s quite possible that we were caught up in the aesthetics of the occasion, without giving any thought to the contest in front of us. Before a ball was even bowled in the ‘historic’ pink ball encounter, a Test match between the Proteas and India was finished inside three days.
In stark contrast to the adulation and endorsement of the Test, the South Africa versus India clash was slammed by the cricketing community, labelling it an embarrassment to the games greater appeal. It served as a clear representation of Test cricket’s fundamental issue – fan boredom.
Test cricket has become a high school popularity contest, dominated by a beta version of itself. Like Sandy Olsen taught us in Grease, you have to change your appearance to impress the more popular, and that’s exactly what day-night Tests have done for cricket’s supporter base.
It’s redesigned itself to appear more gregarious to a Twenty20-minded spectator who admires the aesthetics rather than the games inner workings. It wants fans to be screaming “you’re the one that we want!” as Test cricket rolls into town like the circus every year.
From a cricket lover’s standpoint, the night session delivered on evening up the contest between bat and ball. Swing was king as batsman prodded and poked outside off-stump, waving their bats like a magician waving their wand. This time, however, the bowlers had a spell over the batsman, with the night session yielding 13 wickets.
Seeing the ball sail over the rope, as has become the tradition since the inception of T20, was for the first time in years missing from a red ball contest. The night session may have even (and I say this regretfully) brought an element of attritional cricket back into the game.
So, where does Test cricket’s future lie? Will it become the games most lucrative format once again? It’s quite possible that the first ever day-night Test left us with more questions than answers.
If the pink ball is to become the norm, the only ‘test’ for the ICC and its associates is finding a healthy balance between Test cricket and T20.
Build your own fantasy cricket team and put it to the test with Draftstars daily fantasy competitions. Pick your match, pick your team and watch the points roll in to take out cash prizes on each match. What are you really gambling with? Set a deposit limit.
It seems franchise cricket has forgotten about the great battle between bat and ball. In fact, this season in the IPL there is no battle at all.
The mammoth rise of Jake Fraser-McGurk - his enormous potential and the destructive shot-making that he possesses makes him a very tempting option.
Marcus Stoinis produced his first IPL century and it was a beauty. He went 6, 4, 4, 4 to finish off the Lucknow Super…
Xavier Bartlett has been permission to extend his cricketing education with a spell of T20s in England, playing in the Blast competition for Kent…
Three-Test spinner Matthew Kuhnemann has signed with Tasmania in a bid for red-ball game time ahead of Australia's tour of Sri Lanka next summer.…
Last week, you read about the Matt XI, a compilation of the best cricketers ever to represent the name Matt. And to be fair,…
