It’s talked about as a way to bring in the crowd, but the closest day-night Tests have come to being introduced to the cricket world has been inside the boardroom.
The International Cricket Council has spent millions on research to find the perfect coloured ball that can be used under floodlights and made to last 80 overs, but the pink and orange ones don’t seem to last as long as the traditional red ones.
The administrators are still working hard to find a way out, but there is a section of players who feel that the oldest format of the game should be left untouched. Sri Lankan offie Muttiah Muralitharan is one of the those few, even if it means less audience and lesser money.
“Test cricket is going along fine and it should be kept as it is — it’s one of the few beautiful things in the game that are left untouched by excessive commercialisation,” Muralitharan told this newspaper on Thursday. “If the ICC wants to do it, then it’s up to them. But honestly I don’t see what we’ll able to gain from having floodlit Tests.”
Muralitharan said he was not against innovation, but his biggest fear was the format being reduced to a big slam-bang contest.
“The IPL is a nice innovation. But you cannot use the same formula in other things, and pray that it will be a success. The longer version of the game is designed to be a test of patience where both batsmen and bowlers have to toil under the sun and in extreme conditions to get runs or pick wickets.
“You make it a day-night affair and see how different it becomes.
“Do you think the batsman will settle down under lights and not try to hit every ball for a four?” he said.
Muralitharan’s radical views have found very few supporters within the ICC, but they have done enough to delay the process. It’s only at the end of his two-year-term that the ICC outgoing president David Morgan, a staunch supporter of the concept, could get Cricket Australia to lead the push.
“I believe it won’t be too long before we see day-night Test cricket in Australia or India,” Morgan said on Wednesday.
Once Sharad Pawar replaces Morgan, a lot more money is expected to be pushed into making day-night Tests a reality. That day, Murali hopes, is far away.
“Hope I’m not there when this happens. I don’t want to sound old-fashioned and I’m not against new concepts, but changing something that is more than a 100 years old should be thoroughly discussed. Tomorrow, we’ll have day-night cricket, then balls that glow in the dark. Where does it end?” he said.