Fingers, toes crossed for pink-ball test
NZC desperate for day-night test at Eden Park in busy season
Fingers are crossed at New Zealand Cricket on two counts after the release of the busy international home schedule for the summer. Their bid to have an inaugural day-night test in New Zealand, at Eden Park against England in March is with the Auckland Council resource consent authority.
NZC are determined to join the pink-ball revolution but Eden Park is off limits to night cricket on Sundays. If they lose the bid, the test will stay in Auckland, even though it’s a hard sell on midweek days.
“It would be a big blow for us, but a big blow for Eden Park as well [if the resource consent application is rejected],” NZC chief executive David White said yesterday.
“To be quite honest, test cricket at Eden Park during the day is a real challenge for us. Because of the delay [in the resource decision], we’ve said we’ll play it there anyway. A daynighter at Eden Park would be very successful. We’re hopeful of getting the right answer.”
Secondly, the inaugural T20 triseries, involving England and Australia, has its final at Eden Park on February 21. A final without New Zealand in it would be a damp squib.
The summer comprises 35 internationals, an unprecedented number in a season, with visits from the West Indies, Pakistan, Australia and England. There will be four tests — which will bookend the summer — 13 ODIs and 10 T20 internationals — plus eight games for the White Ferns against the West Indies in March.
The men’s schedule is a pointer to two things: the international programme globally is undergoing change; and another World Cup is looming.
England will host the 2019 tournament and there is sure to be a greater emphasis on the 50-over game for the next two New Zealand summers.
The test match championship — assuming it gets the green light at October’s International Cricket Council meeting — will kick in in the next Future Tours Programme from 2019.
Points will be on offer in two tests of every series. Three-test series may become rarer, but test fans don’t despair just yet: Bangladesh and India are pencilled in for three each NZC want to join the pink-ball revolution but Eden Park is off limits to night cricket on Sundays. in New Zealand over the next two seasons, so that’s not necessarily a given. The West Indies schedule this summer is a pointer to how future seasons may look, with 32 days of cricket, and expect the 2-3-3 split – tests, ODIs, T20s – to become more prevalent.
Still, if you’re a test fan it does not look promising.
Among other features of the schedule:
Mount Maunganui’s Bay Oval will host three night time T20 internationals under the new lights at the ground.
Napier’s McLean Park is back in business after the shambolic washout of an ODI against Australia last season. It will host an England ODI in February.
Whangarei’s Cobham Oval returns to hosting international cricket, with an ODI against the West Indies. It’s the first international at the ground since a one-dayer against Zimbabwe in 2012.
New Zealand A will play two twoday games against England, both in Hamilton, ahead of the first test. If Eden Park is a pink ball test, those games will replicate that scenario.
New Zealand have a solitary T20 against Australia in Sydney on February 3 as part of the tri-series.
The White Ferns have an eightgame visit from the West Indies in March. Spinner Moeen Ali finished off South Africa with a hat-trick as England completed a crushing 239-run victory in the third cricket test at The Oval to move 2-1 ahead in the series.
It is the first time in nearly 60 years that a test has ended with a hat-trick, with Australia left-arm wrist-spinner Lindsay Kline the last bowler to finish a match at this level in similar fashion, against South Africa at Cape Town in