Short-term pain for long-term gain as Adelaide Oval poised to host first day Test match in five seasons
Adelaide Oval will take the hit of hosting struggling West Indies in exchange for a day-night bonanza of Tests between Australia and cricket’s other two superpowers, it can be revealed.
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Adelaide Oval is poised to host a day Test match for the first time in five seasons next summer before being rewarded with blockbuster pink-ball clashes featuring India and England.
The South Australian Cricket Association’s short-term pain of hosting struggling West Indies for the second consecutive season is expected to be offset by back-to-back, day-night Tests between Australia and cricket’s other two superpowers.
Adelaide Oval has been pencilled in to host the second-last Test of next summer against the West Indies – a team Australia thrashed by 419 runs in just over three days at the ground in December – starting on January 17.
Programmed during the school holidays, it will be the first time it has hosted a day Test since 2018 against India.
Adelaide Oval has been the traditional domain of men’s day-night Tests in Australia since 2015 when Australia played New Zealand.
But as part of handing over its traditional Test fixture, SACA has been granted bumper Tests against India, which refused to play under lights in 2018, and England in the following two summers.
Both blockbusters are poised to be pink-ball Tests in the traditional December timeslot.
As part of a three-year commercial scheduling package negotiated with CA – and giving up its prized December Test for a year – SACA will save a windfall of up to $8.4 million, given its previous premium has been waived.
This money will be spent on local cricket infrastructure, including an immediate injection of $2 million into SACA’s ‘Places to Play’ infrastructure fund for schools and women’s cricket.
Apart from the Test against the West Indies, Adelaide Oval will host a men’s T20 International between Australia and the Windies on February 11 and women’s One-Day International between Australia and South Africa on February 3.
SACA president Will Rayner, whose board and the SA Government took on CA by audaciously lobbying for Sydney’s New Year’s Eve Test, lauded the new deal.
He said it also included an agreement for “transparent and consistent’’ long-term Test match allocation to ensure “SACA is not taken for granted in future scheduling decisions’’.
He said CA’s new process, to be completed later this year, would “provide certainty over Adelaide Oval Test Match scheduling until 2031’’.
SACA had lobbied for premium Tests at Adelaide Oval after it was revealed a secret, longstanding “best endeavours’’ deal with CA had expired.
The Oval was guaranteed high profile Tests following the $550 million redevelopment of the ground in 2014.
This involved the payment of an undisclosed fee to CA but the agreement ended following last December’s Test between Australia and the West Indies.
But SACA insists that its Tests at the famous ground – arguably the best cricket venue in the world – have been so successful since the world-class redevelopment that it deserves to continue to be rewarded with marquee match-ups and prime time matches.
Next summer’s Australian home international fixture will take on an unconventional look – and later start date – because of Australia’s men’s white-ball commitments in India, which include T20 matches in December following the 50-over World Cup.
The men’s home summer has been earmarked to begin in mid-to-late December in Perth, with the first of three Tests between Australia and Pakistan.
Melbourne and Sydney are expected to host their traditional Boxing Day and New Year’s Tests between the two countries.
Adelaide will host the first Test of a two-Test series against the Windies, with the second expected to be a day-night fixture at Brisbane’s Gabba in late January.
Cricket Australia is expected to reveal its full 2023-24 international fixture within days.
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