Atherton: Playing Anniversary Test at the MCG with Pink Ball puts money before tradition
In March 2027, the 150th anniversary of the very first Test match will be celebrated. But tradition will not be followed in every sense and former England captain Michael Atherton asks why.
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About a decade ago Mike Selvey, then The Guardian’s cricket correspondent, wrote a piece relating Jimmy Anderson to the very first Test match played, in 1877. As old as he is, Anderson is not that ancient, but the idea was that by linking him to another England cricketer he had played with, and so on, you could retrace the entire history of Test cricket with fewer players than it takes to make up a team.
So, as Selvey noted, Anderson played Test cricket with Alec Stewart, who played with Graham Gooch, who played with John Edrich, who played with Brian Close, who played with Len Hutton, who played with Les Ames, who played with Wilfred Rhodes, who played with WG Grace, who played with George Ulyett – who played in the inaugural Test of 1877. A chain of ten links. Simple.
This week Cricket Australia announced updated plans to celebrate Test cricket’s remarkable heritage through a sesquicentenary Test that will be played at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in March 2027, 150 years after the first. The idea follows the famous Centenary Test in 1977 at the same ground, which, incredibly, finished in exactly the same way – a victory for Australia by 45 runs – as the first, which ended on March 19, 1877.
Those England players who will play in this celebratory Test at the MCG in two years’ time, and who played with Anderson, will now be only 11 degrees of separation away from Ulyett and his teammates who first strode out to play that very first game. It’s a neat way to think about why such a Test will be commemorated, and the connections that continue to bind and underpin the five-day game.
Yet, when Cricket Australia gave its update this week, it revealed that the match would be a day-night affair, played with a pink ball. Why?
Since 1877, there have been 2,581 Tests and 361 Tests between Australia and England. Of the former, only 23 have been played under lights, three of which have been between Australia and England (one in the 2017-18 Ashes, two in 2021-22). Why celebrate the history of Test cricket by playing it in a way that is foreign to how the vast majority of Tests have been played?
Cricket Australia’s reasoning is two-fold, it says. This will be a late-season Test and March is in term time, so it is designed “to encourage attendance outside of the school holiday period”. The second reason is TV related.
“A day-night Test should prove attractive for the UK television audience. Regular Ashes Tests hosted on Australia’s east coast typically begin before midnight in England but a later start means early-rising UK fans will be able to watch the final two sessions.”
On the face of it, this seems a reasonable explanation, but having observed cricket administrators in action for so long, forgive me for thinking that the second reason is far more important than the first, and that it is the bottom line that is likely to be the most significant reason of all. Television revenues from the UK may well be higher as a result and for a global television audience (read India) the times of a day-night Test would be more amenable too.
That the game dances to the needs of television most of the time is obvious. When the final of the T20 World Cup last summer began at 10.30am on a Sunday, the reason was the global television audience, not those watching in Barbados who would have preferred a later start. More and more, the game is becoming less and less of a vehicle for a live audience.
But a one-off Test, such as will be staged in Melbourne in two years’ time, should surely be in sync with how the game has been played for the vast majority of its existence? Fifty years ago Melbourne staged a great Centenary Test, one in which every living England and Australian cricketer was invited. All but two dozen of the 244 turned up. They put old rivalries (and in some case, enmities) to one side to revel in what Wisden called “an occasion of warmest reunion and nostalgia”.
Percy Fender, at 84, was the oldest England cricketer to attend, almost blind and supported by his grandson. This time, if invited, whoever will be Fender’s equivalent will be lucky to make it to the third session, so late in the evening will the match finish. Nor will he recognise much before him, when darkness descends and the pink ball starts to zip around.
Day-night Tests have been a worthwhile but not entirely satisfactory experiment as they have an element of artifice built in, depending on who is batting when the twilight period starts. It could be said they have introduced an interesting new strategic element, encouraging captains to think about structuring the game so that they are bowling at the most advantageous time, but very few have gone into a final day.
There have been 13 day-night Tests in Australia, and only three have gone into a fifth day (two of those, admittedly, have been against England). Five of those games have finished inside three days and the past six day-night Tests have lasted an average of 260 overs – three days’ worth of cricket, in other words. In fairness, day games have lasted only a little longer on average over the past two years, as Test matches have shortened in duration.
Of course, cricket has always adapted and changed – and must do so in future. The very first Test had a rest day built in and few would advocate that the 150th anniversary Test should have the same. I’ve been around long enough to have played in a few Tests with rest days and, looking back, it seems ridiculous now. The experiment with day-night Test cricket has been successful enough to the extent that one pink-ball Test, usually at Adelaide, now forms part of the summer schedule down under.
But they have not really caught on elsewhere. One experimental game here in England, at a freezing Edgbaston against West Indies, was enough to ensure never again.
Even in Australia, it is the exception rather than the norm. One of the joys for those who go to Test cricket is the social time after a day’s play, when events over a drink and a bite to eat can be discussed. Late finishes curtail those prospects, except for those who drift away before the close.
Mitchell Starc, one of the most devastating bowlers with a pink ball, noted the fundamental difference early on in the life of day-night Test cricket when he said: “It [the ball] definitely reacts very differently. Whether you have to start a whole new set of stats for the pink ball … it throws up a huge number of questions and theories about where the game is going.”
It is plain enough where the game is going; which is to say towards ever shorter formats and ever more transient relationships between players and franchises. The celebration of the 150th anniversary of Test cricket in Melbourne in 2027 should be, uniquely, about recognising its debt to the past, as well as its modern strengths. That should happen with a red ball in daylight hours, in a way that is relatable to the vast bulk of the history of Test cricket.
Originally published on The Times and republished with permission
Originally published as Playing anniversary Test with pink ball puts money before tradition.
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