Why day-night Tests will be a saviour

If you are prepared to cover wickets and run-ups, then changing a ball from red to white as dark falls, the lights go on and the sightscreen is changed from white to black isnt that much of a leap. When the conditions are suitable, and by the I mean dew as much as anything, there's no good reason not to use lights to play cricket.

sheek exactly . Test cricket must evolve without he times. You have said it before on here you have a teenage daughter, and in some way that has snapshot your opinions for the better about today's generation. You have an insight into how a lot of todays teenager generation think. Heck sheek i was watch an american teenage move series american pie the reunion. Basically the 4th made in the series. And in it there was a scene where one of them was playing some 90's music the spice girls , as he was dropping some teenage girls home who lived next door to his parents,. So he put the spice girls on thought they;d like it. And they said classic rock cool" . ANd he said is this seen as classic." So this gives you an insight who todays generation think. The 90's are seen as classic or so long ago. I doubt how on earth todays young teenagers could relate to an Australian test cricket dressing room in the 1980's or 70's. Like being on another planet. They can relate to cricket power plays, but i think they would never be aware that the SCG once had a hill, and also they probably think in ODI cricket 200 is a lousy score. When i was goring up 200 was a respectable score in ODI cricket tough to get under lights at the MCG or SCG. Times have changed and test cricket has to adapt to the global world or it simply will fade into obscurity like croquet . And when they get to adulthood , which wont be long they don't stay kids or teenagers forever they transfer that more modern line of thinking over to what they were brought up . And it is a modern approach. Your point about 135 years of test cricket passing as meaningless today generation is spot on. And the same goes for many in rugby circles too, and the private school system has to evolve too and realise they are not rapped in the 1890's or 1920's, in how these associations were formed. Thankfully the ARU is now waking up and evolving with this new governance, test cricket must do the same. My point in fact , i would beet 99% of aussies under the age of 18 would never of heard of Geoff Boycott, and maybe only 5% would of heard of viv richards, and maybe 1-2% would of heard of sunny gavaskar, . And i reckon under 10% would of heard of david boon or dean jones. Or the tied test in India in 1986. Heck i rekcon most maybe 70% would of forgotten about someone like Damien Martyn or Matt Hayden. Test cricket has to evolve and get into the real world or it will sink. And Saolisi you make a good point about other media streams to watch or stay in touch with the sport. But reality is this. Only 8 teams playing now test cricket, i don't see any evidence of any teams on the horizon or countries, playing it. And if the crowds are so bad in India now the central hub, plus the increasing uncertainty when pkaistna will reutrn to the fold. Playing all there matches overseas. I really worry about the future of test cricket long term, despite these changes. 8 teams playing is not enough. And it is struggling in many of those markets mainly the subcontinent, and the west Indies. I am almost at the point now to no longer call the west Indies a test playing team. So that is down to 7,. And NZ despite there good series last year is struggling too. And in south africa with all the young black generation there. As many of there older family members never had anything to do with test cricket, for political reasons int he 70's and 80's. Who is to ay south africans next generation care less about 5 days of test cricket. 5 days to get a result is an awful long time for todays generation people born after 1990. And news for everyone people. Those born from year 2000 onwards im sure will be even more impatient than those born in 1990. It doesn't bodes well or be encouraging for test cricket future. Good luck finding a big enough market of people form those born after the year 2000 wanting to hang around for 5 days to find out a winer and loser and get a result. Don't like your stastitcal odds, and that doesn't bode well for test cricket.

This video is pretty instructive about the testing of the pink ball. It was done on a small county ground with little more than a handful of spotlights. It will be a different story at the MCG, SCG and the Gabba which will be lit-up like Christmas trees. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rn27LLUwIeg

Sheek, With all due respect to your greater knowledge and experience but your hours of play simply will not work. The Tea Break MUST be an hour and six minutes and it MUST commence at 17:58 EDST and finish at 19:04 EDST or Channel Nine will not allow it, because it will clash with the News and ACA and as we know they are the final arbitrators in this Day / Night farce.

What happens for the Ashes in England - allready hard enough to stay up for the whole game - gots to think about the international audience. for games in Australia and new zealand it probably appeals to the rest of the world to have night games, but for the viewers in Australian and India night tests in Sth Africa and England would be rubbish.

Sheek, are these the same people that said in the late 60's that the West Indian cricket must develop more spin bowlers because West Indies won't be able to rely on fast bowling to carry them to the success they desire like they did with Hall and Griffith? How much test cricket was Sri Lanka playing in the 1970's. India is a much different country to the one that existed 30 years ago. When I do believe at the insistence of the English that India agree to playing one day matches on that shocking England tour of the early 80's when both pitches and scoring rates were a disgrace. Yes over 350,000 people attended the test match at Eden Gardens and it was a total bore. -- Comment left via The Roar's iPhone app. Download it now [http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/the-roar/id327174726?mt=8].

Sailosi, Your thinking is so skewered, I'm not going to let you get away with making these comments without returning fire. "Test cricket is under zero threat." The following remark comes from no other than Roar cricket expert Kersi. As a young man in India in the 60s, he would travel 4-6 hours to a test venue in the hope of maybe, just maybe, getting a ticket at the ground. Crowds would swarm in their tens of thousands. Every day of every test. Go to test cricket in India today & you might even have most of a stand to yourself to choose from where you sit. Or walk around to the other side of the ground & same thing. Take your time. Thousands & thousands of empty seats to choose from. India is cricket's most populous country & they have fallen out of love with test cricket. Why is test cricket under threat? Because it is so easy to make an obscene amount of money from T20. Bung on a meaningless T20 tournament & watch the cash registers gyrate out of control. They might as well call T20 a money making machine. Why should a young bloke have any desire to play test cricket when he can make a fortune as a run-of-the-mill player at T20? Why should an administrator invest in test cricket when he can assure more guaranteed money from a meaningless T20 tournament than a test match? The economies of scale are frightening for the future of test cricket. Forget what might be happening now here in Australia. Players & administrators are saying now, today, that test cricket is still the ultimate. Are you absolutely one hundred percent sure that the players & administrators will be saying the same thing in 5 years? In 10 years? Test cricket has to change its structure in order to remain relevant. One hundred & thirty-five years of continuous test cricket is almost meaningless to today's generation. Most of them don't know or care what happened past 2000. Or maybe not even past 2010! Evolve or perish, that's the choice. It may even be too late now for test cricket.....

If test cricket is not under threat...why is it then that Sri Lanka has cancelled a test series with the West Indies and is looking to cancel a further test series against South Africa to replace them with limited overs series?

Problem is...these days you'd be sitting in a completely empty stadium in the Caribbean in the sun and the heat...all by yourself.

The difference is that you know a golf major will be played through the final day, that is not the case in Test cricket. In a particularly lopsided game there might be little play on day three and none on day four.

Who knows, maybe you're right. There were people in 1970 saying the Australian tennis production line would never dry up. And there were people in 1995 saying the Windies pacemen production would never dry up. But they were wrong, of course. :-)

Sheek, test cricket is under zero threat. Radio ratings, Internet hits, tv viewing figures are stable or on the up in every test playing nation. Crowds for test cricket will never get back to what they were in India for example in the 60's and 70's. Electronic media means that people no longer have to attend test matches to see players they have only read about. The increase in limited overs cricket and the increased profile of domestic limited overs cricket has meant that the consumer has more choice. There is now not only 25-40 days of top level cricket in each season for a person to watch. There is closer to 100 days of cricket if not more for a person to watch. People may decide to watch 1 day of test cricket, 2 days of limited overs cricket and 5 days of 20/20 cricket, rather than 5 days of test cricket. teams still play more test cricket than they did 30 years ago. This whole notion of a sport dying is just rubbish. How many sports have just died and no longer exist? Whilst cricket is being played, test cricket will always be play. I would suggest that if you believe that 4 day/night test cricket matches will somehow propel test cricket further forward you maybe the one who is blinkered. -- Comment left via The Roar's iPhone app. Download it now [http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/the-roar/id327174726?mt=8].

Why would you start the test on a Saturday wouldn't you start on a Thursday like a golf major and conclude on a Sunday, or at least a Friday. 4 days of 7 hours would be good, you would still get enough results. I don't think day night tests can save/enhance test cricket, for that we would need a proper schedule,co-operation between the boards to give the ICC real power etc.

Sailosi, If the choice is between day/night tests or no tests at all, then the choice is a very easy one to make..... Make no mistake, test cricket is under severe pressure & must find a way to continue to exist & thrive. I'm tempted to say you are incredibly blinkered, but I won't! ;-)

Atawhai, I attended a Cricket Society function last year (or perhaps earlier this year) when Bob Cowper spoke. Gawd, he was so interesting to listen to. He's now a millionaire & it's obvious he is a very clever fellow. Ian Chappell sites him as his inspiration for pushing for player's rights when he himself was captain. I think Cowper told the story of how the tour fee hadn't changed much between 1948 & 1972. No wonder there was revolution in the air back then!

Quite right, Sheek. Whatever Kerry Packer's motivations, he created an environment in which cricketers were paid what they were worth and were able to embrace full-time professionalism. Until Packer, the only true professional cricketers were found in England. Anyone from Australia or New Zealand or the West Indies who wanted to play full-time had to head for the English County circuit (or league cricket oop north). There is a story, possibly apocryphal, that the tour fee (on top of expenses) paid to the 1948 Invincibles enabled the more prudent of them to buy a house for cash when they returned to Australia. By 1972, the tour fee had scarcely changed and it was not enough for even a deposit on a house. And as you point out, players rarely do the selectors' job for them and pull the pin these days, not until they've reached their late 30s at least. A mixed blessing for sure.

What a sad day for the greatest game of all. Day/night test cricket is a disgrace. I can only hope that this is not endorsed by the other test playing nations. I have already read that the most sensible board in cricket the BCCI have turned there nose up at it. The Australian tour of the Carribean in 1991 was the best cricket tour I ever followed. Getting up at 6 in the morning and walking to the ground and knowing that there is another 12 hours ahead of you in the sun and the heat is what watching test cricket is all about. Watching Gordon Greenidge score a test double hundred at 40 is still one of my fondest cricketing memories. How I would have hated to see that unfold at 9.30 at night with an orange ball. -- Comment left via The Roar's iPhone app. Download it now [http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/the-roar/id327174726?mt=8].

Hi Atawhai, Test cricket was certainly booming in the mid-70s. I was a teenager who rode that boom every step of the way, following my heroes every time they stepped onto a cricket pitch. While KP certainly had his own motives, he saved the game in the sense that players were now being paid what they were worth, which helped keep them in the game longer. In the mid-70s, most of the leading Aussies were struggling to stay in the game. Their commitment to tests & tours had been doubled, even tripled, but on the same miserly pay. But with greater time devoted to cricket, they were becoming more & more unemployable. WSC meant these guys could now be paid well for playing cricket & not have to worry about alternative employment. Bobby Simpson retired from test cricket at age 32 in early 1968 when he was offered about 10 times more money to cover the Ashes tour in England as a journalist than lead the team as captain. Bob Cowper retired from test cricket after that tour at age 28; Paul Sheahan retired in 1974 aged 27; Ian Chappell retired the first time in 1976 aged 32; Greg Chappell, Rod Marsh, Dennis Lillee, Max Walker & Doug Walters initially indicated they would be retiring in 1977 aged respectively 28, 29, 27, 28 & 31. Admittedly, they all knew WSC was around the corner. The great thing about WSC is that instead of seeing our heroes retire anywhere between 27-32, they are now playing on until 36-39. Of course, sometimes this is a good thing, sometimes not.

David, you of all people should know better than to recycle the enduring but ludicrous myth that Kerry Packer “saved” cricket in the 1970s. KP himself was openly scornful of the idea that he had any altruistic motivation. Test cricket was booming in the mid-1970s. Anyone who was around to watch a great Australian team thrash England in the six-Test Ashes series in 1974-75 and West Indies in the six-Test 1975-76 series remembers how hugely popular Test cricket was at that time. Kerry Packer, a buccaneering businessman with a heart of stone, saw a great commercial opportunity. He made his play for the TV rights and the ACB, as it was then, knocked him back. Packer would not be denied and the rest is history. I don’t have a problem with day-night Tests. Nor do I have a problem with four-day Tests (although the fast bowlers union might have other ideas). Test cricket continues to evolve, although you can’t help hoping that the evolution is organic and not something contrived by an increasingly desperate and second-rate TV network.

If they had half decent over rates, they could bowl as many overs in 28 hours as are currently bowled in 30 with no loss of play.