By Chris Barrett
Australian cricket's summer schedule was announced on Wednesday with a notable TBC affixed to it as a result of the opposition of South Africa's players about featuring in a pink ball Test.
A shake-up to the Test fixture list for the 2016-17 season, revealed by Fairfax Media earlier this month, will lead to the international summer beginning in Perth and not Brisbane for the first time in more than 20 years, with Australia to take on South Africa at the WACA, followed by Hobart and Adelaide.
Pakistan will then play Tests against Australia at the Gabba, the MCG and the SCG from mid-December to the first week of January, the first match of that series set to be a day-night affair in the school holidays that has been hatched as a plan to reinvigorate a Brisbane Test that has struggled recently for popularity in non-Ashes years.
The real intrigue, though, is around the timeslot for what Cricket Australia want to be the first of two pink-ball Tests this summer.
Adelaide Oval was the site of the commercially successful first day-night Test last year between Australia and New Zealand, and CA's desire is for the much-anticipated series against the Proteas to wind up under lights there again.
However, the South Africans' resistance to participating in the CA venture has thrown a spanner in the works, meaning that only the dates of the Adelaide Test were announced on Wednesday, with the starting time of play to be finalised further down the track.
"We are working with Cricket South Africa with a view to ensuring that the Adelaide Test is a Day-Night Test. With more than 123,000 people attending and an average of two million watching on television last season, there is enormous expectation that we deliver another pink ball Test match this summer in Adelaide.
In a press release on Wednesday morning, Cricket Australia Chief Executive Officer James Sutherland said: "Understandably, there is some concern from the South African players, but Day-Night Test cricket is all about the fans and a Day-Night match in Adelaide will be a bigger Test match crowd than the South African players will have ever experienced.
"The success of Adelaide last year demonstrates the huge potential the day-night format has in revitalising Test cricket all over the world, and it's for that reason that it is our desire to stage another Test under lights at that venue.
"We believe that having the ability to move matches into the evenings provides cricket fans with greater access to the game, both at the ground and at home on TV, and there is no doubt that this will help grow interest in Test cricket.
"Even for cricket fans at home in South Africa there are benefits. The Day-Night Test hours will allow the match to be televised in a far more attractive time of day in South Africa."
The Proteas' opposition has parallels with that of Black Caps players before the inaugural pink-ball showpiece last November, but after being filled in on the shortcomings of the concept by Australian players during a Twenty20 series in South Africa before the World T20 tournament they may be more difficult to convince.
A $1 million purse, with 60 per cent to the winner and 40 per cent to the loser, eventually helped get New Zealand players over the line. The South Africans' objection, though, may not be swayed by financial inducement. Their players' association chief, Tony Irish, says they believe they would be disadvantaged in day-night conditions and are unlikely to accept even with CA's offer of a pink-ball warm-up match.
There will be more international content in the next summer than the last, with three Chappell-Hadlee Trophy one-day internationals against New Zealand squeezed into early December between the two Test series and further limited-overs matches against Pakistan scheduled for January.
AUSTRALIA VS SOUTH AFRICA TEST SERIES
Nov 3-7, Perth
Nov 12-16, Hobart
Nov 24-28, Adelaide *
AUSTRALIA VS NEW ZEALAND ONE-DAY SERIES
Dec 4, Sydney
Dec 6, Canberra
Dec 9, Melbourne
AUSTRALIA VS PAKISTAN TEST SERIES
Dec 15-19, Brisbane (D/N)
Dec 26-30, Melbourne
Jan 3-7, Sydney
AUSTRALIA VS PAKISTAN ONE-DAY SERIES
Jan 13, Brisbane
Jan 15, Melbourne
Jan 19, Perth
Jan 22, Sydney
Jan 26, Adelaide
AUSTRALIA VS SRI LANKA, T20 SERIES
Feb 17, TBA
Feb 19, TBA
Feb 22, TBA
* Possible day-night Test, dependent on agreement between Cricket Australia and Cricket South Africa