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More day-night Tests? Bring it on

7th April, 2016
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Day-night Test matches are gaining traction (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft)
Expert
7th April, 2016
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1219 Reads

The introduction of two day-night Tests next Australian summer is great news for the game and for fans.

Why? Because day-night fixtures are tailor-made for creating lower-scoring, more evenly matched Tests in an era of boring runfests.

After last summer’s historic day-night Test against New Zealand in Adelaide, all the talk was of the great ratings, big crowds, the ‘spectacle’ of the new format and the way in which the later hours of play benefited fans.

Yet, to me, the biggest plus to come out of that Test was the exciting finish, something which has become incredibly rare in home Tests.

Of Australia’s six home Tests last summer, by far the most engaging was the Adelaide match, where batsmen were made to work for their runs due to the swinging pink ball and the green pitch produced to maintain the condition of that ball.

That match produced a thrilling finish, whereas the other five Tests for the summer were dreary, lopsided affairs on heinously flat tracks. Australian fans, even Test diehards like myself, have grown sick of these tedious affairs, where the bowlers are reduced to cannon fodder and the side batting first has a massive advantage.

Over the past six Australian summers, there have been only four ‘close’ results from a whopping 32 Tests. And in coming to this number I set very generous parameters for a result to qualify as ‘close’ – a margin of 100 runs or less, or five wickets or less.

Looking at those figures, it is extraordinary to think that, on average, an Australian fan had to watch eight home Tests before they saw a close result. Day-night matches are certain to throw up engaging results far more often than this.

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While many fans bemoaned the fact that last summer’s pink ball Test was over inside three days, that truncated match offered greater fascination than the rest of the Test summer combined. For the moment, the pink Kookaburra does not maintain its condition nearly as well as the traditional red version.

This had the positive effect of forcing the Adelaide curator to prepare a green and moist pitch last summer, and the groundsmen at both Adelaide Oval and the Gabba will surely have to do so again next season.

Fairfax media yesterday reported that Cricket Australia was planning a major shakeup of the Test schedule for next summer, with day-night Tests in both Adelaide and Brisbane.

They reported that the Test summer would kick off at the WACA, with a Test against South Africa, before the Proteas later played under lights at Adelaide. Pakistan would play the other pink ball Test at the Gabba.

Already, those pink ball Tests are the ones I am most looking forward to. Australia, South Africa and Pakistan all boast fantastic pace batteries. It is very appealing to consider batsmen trying to combat the pink ball under lights against the likes of Dale Steyn, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood, Morne Morkel, Mohammad Amir, Kagiso Rabada, Wahab Riaz and James Pattinson.

Compare that to watching those gifted quicks being belted like club trundlers on the kind of featherbeds for which Australia has become infamous. I know which I’d rather watch, and I’m sure most cricket fans would agree.

As much as the spectacle, the big crowds and the convenient timing of day-night Tests, it’s their potential to create regular gripping matches which can help the longest format flourish.

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