England not tempted by day-night Test delights

England have experimented with day-night cricket but are unlikely to schedule one during the return Ashes series in 2019.

Adelaide’s day-night Test has been a huge success but won’t be replicated in England

England have experimented with day-night cricket but are unlikely to schedule one during the return Ashes series in 2019.

ECB chief Tom Harrison is in Melbourne for the Boxing Day Test and was interviewed on radio yesterday with Cricket Australia chief James Sutherland.

England agreed to play the first day-night Ashes match in Adelaide and will play against New Zealand in Auckland in March, but at this stage look as if they will not do the same when Australia tours in two years.

“It’s to be decided, but it’s unlikely, to be honest,” Harrison told the ABC. “I think we’ve got a format that works brilliantly well for us in Ashes cricket in the UK. Right time, right place, right conditions are the rules for day-night Test cricket. I think we’ll wait and see, but it’s unlikely I would say.”

Australia played the first day-night game against New Zealand in 2015-16 in Adelaide and scheduled two the following summer, adding Brisbane to the calendar.

England played their first day-night Test at Edgbaston against the West Indies in August. Until this week Pakistan was the only other country to experiment with the format, playing against the West Indies in Dubai last year.

South Africa are playing an experimental four-day day-night match against Zimbabwe in Cape Town, which Cricket Australia is watching with interest although Sutherland indicated it would be difficult to shift to that format with the Test Championship coming up.

“I’m certainly an advocate for the trial,” Sutherland said. “I think it’s really important to understand more about Test cricket, the right playing conditions and the right way in which the game can be played,” the Australian cricket boss said. “And again, I guess the conditions in which it’s played so that it works but from our perspective the Test championship, when it’s inaugurated in 2019, will be played as a five-day competition.”

Australia does, however, have a one-off Test pencilled in for the summer of 2020-21 against ­Afghanistan, which would be the perfect opportunity to trial a four-day Test. England are also monitoring the situation.

“There are huge advantages with four-day Test cricket, which in the context of a very cluttered and busy schedule for Test cricket need to be looked at.

“We need to learn what four-day Test cricket serves up, how it can be made from a conditions perspective really relevant, and ensure a really fantastic contest for fans over four days, notwithstanding we understand that five-day Test cricket and all that history and context and tradition and tight finishes, sometimes in the fifth day we don’t want to lose. So it’s about balancing those things.”