Floodlit stadiums, a pink ball instead of the red cherry, breaks for tea and dinner.
Wait a second, are we actually talking about Test cricket?
We are. With average attendances plunging to record lows outside Australia and England, the International Cricket Council has finally bitten the bullet. On November 27, Australia and New Zealand will walk out to play the third Test at Adelaide in a series where Australia currently lead 1-0.
But there will be a slight change in the proceedings. Instead of the traditional early morning start, the game will begin under the hot afternoon sun, at two o’clock. The red ball will be replaced by a pink one, for the first time in international cricket. And after 138 years, Test cricket will enter the brave new world of day-night cricket.
To ensure that the players have some idea of these strange new conditions, both the Australian and New Zealand players have played some domestic cricket under the lights. And as Aussie captain Steven Smith shows in the above video, whether it’s day or night, he can still score the big runs.
Leading up to the historic match, the biggest talking point has been about how the new pink ball will behave. The reviews have been mixed, Australian pacemen Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood have complained about not being able to see the ball properly while Indian captain Virat Kohli has thrown his weight firmly behind the concept of day-night Tests. The manufacturers, Kookaburra, have defended the pink ball, by stating that “No other ball has gone through the level of testing that the pink ball has had”.
And what do former cricketers and experts, whom you'd expect to be purist, think about day-night Test cricket. They love the idea.
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