Who is the pink-ball Test for?
Calling the inaugural Day-Night Test in Adelaide in November 2015 an unqualified success is wrong because it wasn't says Malcolm Knox in the Sydney Morning Herald
23-Apr-2016
The concept of playing Test cricket under lights had taken seed to try and address its dwindling popularity. Australia are hoping to play two more such matches next summer even as valid concerns - notably from the captain of one of their oppositions, AB de Villiers - were raised. In this regard, the situation is similar to the rugby league, when a draw became unacceptable to broadcasters, forcing the organisers to introduce extra time, even as the players opposed the idea. It raises the question: who is the pink-ball Test for? Fans, players, administrators or broadcasters? Malcolm Knox of Sydney Morning Herald examines.
Recalcitrants are reminded of the "bigger picture", but what is the bigger picture? The contrivance of a gimmick or the weight placed on the game itself? The cricketers who don't want to play Test cricket as an experiment, just like the league players who don't want their work to boil down to field goals, are conservatives in this sense, but are they reactionaries? Maybe they just see the essence of their sport as worth preserving. And it's not true that all of the fans are lined up behind the money, demanding instant-result football and fast-forward cricket. Many of us think that if you degrade what is at stake in the service of tonight's TV ratings it is you who are losing sight of the bigger picture. Day-night Test cricket? By all means do it when you have developed a better ball, but don't call last year's experiment an unqualified success when it wasn't.