Bangladesh / England

Day night Test cricket

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Our knee jerk-reaction to suggestions that day-night Test cricket be played was that it was a shocker of an idea. We’ve always thought of knee-jerk reactions as being worth clinging to in the face of subsequent strong evidence against your point of view, but on this occasion we’re softening our stance.

Day-night Test cricket has a place in this world. However, that place is not England.

We can well imagine enjoying a balmy night of Test cricket in Sri Lanka or southern India. If it’s unbearably hot and humid by day, it makes sense to play when the sun’s gone down as it’ll still be warm.

In England, the sun definitely helps when you’re watching cricket – especially in May, when England appear intent on scheduling a day-night Test match against Bangladesh next year.

The ECB suffer from all three major types of retardation.

Similar deliveries:

Default ThumbnailWhy Edgbaston day-night Test will be a success (and another attendance-related experiment the ECB should run) Default ThumbnailFriday night Twenty20 cricket Default ThumbnailWhat’s it like to attend a day-night test in England?

12 comments

  2. Things is, KC, you appear to be advocating not day-night cricket, but night cricket…

    Hearing various foreign people talk about how quickly night arrives in ozland and the warmer evenings outside of this fair isle does seem to make sense. It’s probably going to be harsh enough finishing the current ODI series during regular hours in Durham, let along doing it in the dark for 5 days up there…

  3. If they’re scheduling day/night cricket in May in England, I hope Lord’s are going to buy massive versions of those gas heater things you get in pub gardens and stick one next to each of the floodlights.

  5. I think the idea of night Test matches overseas, other than in the West Indies, is a rather marvellous one. I then wouldn’t have to get up at silly o’ clock or stay up all night to watch them!

    Lord’s should just supply spectators with sleeping bags, Alex. Invaluable bit of cricket watching kit in April/May in my opinion!

  6. The rest of the world of the world has warmer evenings, but England’s long summer evenings are already used for cricket… Where else do you have full 40 over games on a local ground not starting until 2pm?

  7. I’d like to see SarahCanterbury’s concept extended to Dawn Day matches as well, but only in inhospitable climes like England where the sun gets up at 5am latest in cricketing season. That way I could catch the toss with a few pre-dinner drinks, and cheer the final runs with a late supper.

    Stuff the players’ needs, and those few fans who actually still go to matches – the TV audience far outweighs them in importance these days.

  8. So you have day/night test cricket, you have counties and grounds competing for the rights to Test matches – would it not at some point lead to some entrepreneurial club building a ground WITH A ROOF? I would suggest, having been frustrated with the miserable weather in England so many times – and I live in Australia and only watch it on TV! – that this could be a very positive step forward.

  9. Apart from the logistics of building a roof that were high enough, do you think cricket can really afford that? Just putting a roof on centre court at Wimbledon cost £100m, so you can prob multiply that by three for a cricket ground. Cricket does not have the money to make that viable

  10. I’m much less inclined to go and watch a cricket match under a roof. It seriously limits the number of games you can play while watching cricket. Such as ‘Count the Pigeons’, ‘What Does that Cloud Look Like?’ and ‘Who Can Get the Worst Sun Burn?’. I can think of at least 5 days of cricket watching this summer alone that would have been seriously affected by these omissions.

  11. If you google “cricket under roof” the first link is for an article titled “Flashing for a New Roof”. Now, I’m all for direct action, but seriously…

  12. Telstra Dome. Melbourne. Has a roof. It retracts. They have played cricket under it. In winter. Mike Hussey, of all people, managed to hit the roof. No-one else did. Its pretty high. There are still pigeons in there when the roof is closed. You could play, ‘who can get the worst chillblains?’, ‘cos its pretty cold in there.

    Agreed though it was built for Australian Rules football, and cricket hasn’t been played there since.

    Agreed also that cricket in England probably couldn’t afford it. It would have to be a country where cricket is popular!

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