If the results from a quick Google search can be taken as the gospel according to the internet, then next summer Australia will host England in a day-night Ashes Test.
Well, when I say ‘will’ I actually mean, depending on which media outlet you choose to believe, they could do. Or they might. Or they’re moving towards. Or it’s a bang to rights certainty. Or something else.
Half of the headlines don’t even accurately describe what follows, but that isn’t limited to the possibility of a cricket match taking place.
Just pray that Australia doesn’t ever get embroiled in the equivalent of Brexit, unless you really do have a penchant for sensationalist, inaccurate and misguided (or all three at once and this goes for both sides of the argument) drivel being spouted by all and sundry.
But let’s get back to the important stuff. Will one of the Ashes Tests break new ground when Alastair Cook leads his all-conquering, ahem – on home soil most of the time – battalion into the oldest rivalry of them all?
It’s worth looking at what constitutes the evidence before reaching a definitive answer.
Australia (so far) has hosted two of the aforementioned contests which, by all accounts, have been a raging success.
The cricket has been very good, the pitches have been very good, the crowds have been very good and the TV ratings have been very good. That’s a lot of boxes containing a great big tick.
And in a few months’ time, when the West Indies roll into Birmingham, the city’s Edgbaston stadium will be the venue for the pink ball’s northern hemisphere bow. And this is after a whole round of County Championship games gets the same treatment.
For an administration as conservative as the England Cricket Board that is bordering on mutinous.
So there you go. Fully embraced in one country and about to be in the other.
I’m not usually one for putting two and two together and crossing fingers for the outcome but that’s exactly what I’m about to do.
There should, no, there definitely should, be a day-night Ashes Test next year.
And I’d quite like to be spared the standard ‘we’ve not had the time to prepare’ rhetoric from the tourists.
I could well be doing them a disservice and the opportunity to dive head first into some pink-ball action may well be at the top of some English agendas, but there will no doubt be a few grumblings. Human nature I suppose.
This is where Cricket Australia come into the equation. To put it bluntly, there shouldn’t even be a discussion with their counterparts at Lord’s as to whether England want to play under lights – they should be told they are.
Provide a schedule that involves the relevant conditions being experienced, offer the necessary assistance and, with a permanent marker, get the date marked on the calendar.
Two matches can comfortably be described as a small sample but there can’t be many in the governing body’s head office who would want to abandon the experiment after such successful trials.
Progress doesn’t like to hit bumps in the road and this is, if the signs are being read correctly, progress with plenty of miles in the tank.
Time and again, the state of Test cricket is dragged out for a debate about the format’s relative health but in the same breath any suggested alterations are beaten down by the integrity damaging hammer.
The Adelaide episodes of Australia vs New Zealand in 2015 and Australia vs South Africa in 2016 breathed new life into the game and were just what was required.
Australia vs England 2017? Yes, yes, yes.
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