Day-night Tests a winning format

Reader: Jono Makim

Love Patto! I think Hazlewood is going to be the foundation stone of the attack though, his style of bowling just allows a greater workload. If we can have two of Starc, Patto, Cummins and a few others fit most of the time to round out the attack then we are going to win a lot of test matches. Good on him for looking outside of cricket at other opportunities too, I sometimes think a guy like Pat Cummins ought to just go away for a year and do something else to let his body fully heal after something as serious as a fractured back. Be it study or travel, whatever, go and get some perspective and get your body right.

Reader: Himura
I agree that defensive technique of batsmen all over the world has deteriorated. And pitches should be more bowler friendly.

IMHO teams should use home advantage. That being said Nagpur is not similar to Adelaide because in Adelaide there were no uneven bounce. The pink ball was swinging a bit more than usual in the AIR at night (Not movement off the pitch).

Nagpur was not Cape Town because in the 1st (Aus) and 4th (SA) innings the batsmen showed it is possible to apply their skills (Clarke, Smith, Amla). Similar in Trent Bridge where England scored 391 if I am not wrong.

I have no problems if Test matches end in 2/3 days. If any team is not good enough that can happen. Australia won a match in Sharjah within 2 days against Pakistan. So matches ending within 3 days should not be the criterion for comparison IMO.

The problem with Nagpur pitch was that it made bowlers like Elgar, Harmer look like champs. Thats when you know that luck is a bigger factor than individual skill. With the taped tennis ball... If you could survive more than 2 overs, you did well :). Fun times.

Reader: cheatsdontprosper

After seeing the Adelaide day-night test in the flesh, I must say its a winning format for me. I was expecting a slow drawn out Test at Adelaide which is the norm there as the pitch is dry and pretty flat, a batmen's dream really, I thought this would be like pulling teeth as it has a drop-in pitch now due to AFL being played there in the off season, but WOW it was a cracker full of action and very enjoyable to watch, this format may not work in Asia because of heavy dew. Maybe a little less grass on the wicket may up the run scores and make the game last 4 or 5 days.

Either way it was an enjoyable event. It is normally very hot at Adelaide Tests so this format for me is a definite winner as the game starts at the hottest part of the day and gets cooler as the game goes on this is far better for the fans and cricket players. Maybe a day-night Test can be added to the itinerary of most Test series to see how it goes and tinker with the pitches a little to see what happens. A TOP GAME !

Reader: shirl

It seems to me that the doing away with the toss is to combat the fact that there are less "visitor"/practise games played where visiting Test teams can get used to the ground like the old days. Squashing teams into tight schedules where the visitors are in and out of a country and on to next series may have more to do with the results than anything else. I am conservative, I do miss the longer tours of teams. However if cricket is to have tight scheduling as the norm, remove the toss. We are losing so much with test cricket & the players suffer too.

Reader: Bishop

The problem with the toss is that for some Tests, it really doesn't matter. In others, it is absolutely crucial. Such an analysis therefore needs to be anecdotal and not statistical. In the recent NZ Oz Tests, the one toss that was critical was Perth. NZ lost the toss, but it was the one Test in the series they managed to draw. They drew because they out batted Australia, not because the toss wasn't important. Steve Smith was positively gleeful when he won that one. It remains true that the most competitive pitches will see captains unsure as to bat or bowl first. Better yet, they would make opposite choices and both teams could be happy. Improving the quality of the pitches (without changing the character mind you) will reduce the importance of the toss, and lead to a much better game. I do like the idea of being able to change your playing XI once the order of innings is known (whether by a toss or by visitors choice). Seems an easy fix.

Reader: Ben Lee Lewis

It's funny, we used to do the same thing when I was a kid growing up in the bush in Australia... We used to roll our own pitch in the back yard, use a cricket ball with just spin bowling, then when we got bored we would tape up half a tennis ball and bowl as fast as we could.. One day my town was in the middle of a dry spell (no rain for over a month), so the ground outside was getting very hard, we rolled the pitch a bunch of times, cracks formed, then me and my friend took it in turns facing each other on this pitch