ICC panel in favour of day-night Tests

After ODIs and T20Is, cricket body mulls evening hours for longest format

NEW DELHI: An advisory panel of the International Cricket Council (ICC) has recommended that Test-playing nations should look at holding five-day matches under floodlights to attract more spectators.

International one-day and Twenty20 games are played at night with white balls, bringing in fans after office hours, but day-time Tests have seen dwindling crowds especially in the Indian sub-continent.

Playing Test matches into the night has been mooted by the sport’s governing body for the past two years and different coloured balls have been tested to see if they can last the distance.

The ICC’s cricket committee said it had been encouraged by positive reports about the pink balls used in a four-day first-class match in Abu Dhabi in March and discussed day-night Tests at length.

But the committee, headed by former India captain Anil Kumble, said it was not in favour of reducing Tests to four days, although he stated that this proposal could be considered in future.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 20^th, 2015.

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