Pink ball has shown a path for Test cricket

Spectator response on the opening day of the first-ever day-night Test match at Adelaide shed some light on how long the game’s administrators have been living in darkness about salvaging the five-day format.

The official count for the day was 47441. This does not include ground and hospitality staff, media etc, which would take the total to 48000 or thereabouts. When was the last time you saw such huge attendance for a Test match anywhere

When I flew in to Adelaide, I was never in doubt that this landmark Test would be a success: sports loving Aussies would ensure this. But I must admit that I didn’t anticipate such a massive turn-out and so much excitement.

On the eve of the Test, I was at guest at one of the quaint wineries that South Australia is renowned for where a wine-taster-cum-cricket-tragic told me that the Adelaide Oval would be overrun by cricket fans.

“There were 50,000 people for an AC/DC concert at the Oval last week, and there will be as many for this match,’’ Mark the wine-taster forecast. My counter to him was that Test cricket fans must have modest ambitions. “If 25000 turn up, it will be a triumph,’’ I told him.

Mark was emphatic that the figure would be much higher. He was right. The first day’s attendance did not match that for the rock band AC/DC exactly, but Test cricket seemed to have got rocking and rolling again.

Which raises the question whether the authorities have been either tardy in imagination or unbelievers in their own gospel as it were

For several decades now, dwindling Test spectatorship has had the administrators in a lather, but there hasn’t been much innovation to set things right. Why, floodlit cricket itself is almost 37 years old.

The first ball bowled under lights was on January 23, 1978, by Len Pascoe to Barry Richards in Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket. Since then, day-night (and coloured clothing) has been a regular feature of ODIs and lately T20 international cricket.

That fans prefer watching cricket after working hours had been solidly established and with the readymade infra available, it now seems ridiculous that the authorities malingered over implmenting day-night Test cricket for so long.

This stemmed from misplaced conservativeness that left them blinkered to how the world and society were evolving and actually hurt the five-day format. Audiences at grounds started dropping so sharply (except for Ashes contests), that eventually something had to be done.

The answer, happily, was not in something drastic but commonsensical.The pink ball is, of course, the big innovation which drew a lot of attention and flak. There were misgivings in several players — even during the practice matches preceding this Test — about how it would behave, but these were unfounded.

On the evidence of the first two days play, the ball has held up well, though it has seamed a fair bit and swung around sharply under lights. What’s important though is that fast and spin bowlers have been able to take wickets.

Low first innings scores by New Zealand and Australia had perhaps more to do with the apprehension of batsmen rather than the ball or the Adelaide pitch. There were no complaints by fielders about `sighting’ the ball. And by all accounts, fans — at the ground on watching television — gave a thumbs up to the pink coloured orb.

Indeed, former cricketers have hailed the pink ball as well as the day-night Test cricket concept. Shane Warne even tweeted that the Boxing Day Test against the West Indies should be played under lights.

It might be too late for Cricket Australia to renegotiate with West Indies authorities, but I see the demand for more day-night matches increasing exponentially in the coming months, with more players warming to the idea.

It would be presumptuous to say that the five-day format’s problems have been licked completely by the success of one day-night Test experiment in Adelaide. After the initial aura wears off, as it inevitably will, fans still have to be kept engaged.

This would demand more aggressive marketing, a more positive approach in the middle, consistent development — and certainly more results than draws.

But everybody is agreed that this innovative shift has shown a path for Test cricket without which it may have been consigned to a black hole.