Windies come up short on a night of hype

SHORTLY before 7pm, at a time when the players are usually getting ready to board the team bus, soprano Laura Wright bestrode the outfield and let rip with a tea-time rendition of

Nessun Dorma.

It was powerfully sung yet there was no escaping its incongruity. Birmingham 2017 is many things, but Rome or Turin 1990 it is not. Perhaps English cricket’s pink-ball experiment was in danger of over-reaching itself. In truth, this was a day — and an evening, though not, a night — when Test cricket professed to change for ever without really changing much at all. England’s top order was as shaky as the drinkers in the Hollies Stand, Alastair Cook and Joe Root scored effortless hundreds and West Indies looked a rabble. Had the teams been playing with a blue ball on Mars, the script would almost certainly have been the same. But this was all about whether day-night Tests can become a regular part of the English summer, not a collector’s item. It’s worked pretty well elsewhere. Adelaide has drawn large crowds during its two pinkball Tests. In Dubai, the sun set at 5.53pm and in Brisbane at 6.39. At Edgbaston, the sun went down at 8.28, leaving barely an hour of so-called darkness and that included 30 minutes now tagged on to a day at the Test because of feeble over rates. In other words, England in high summer can only really pretend to host a day-night Test. Perhaps none of this matters. Edgbaston has sold over 70,000 tickets for the first three days of a game that might otherwise have generated indifference. Comfortably more than were sold for the first three days of last summer’s Test against Pakistan. And despite constant assurances that Test cricket’s health remains robust, games outside London not involving Australia or India have long attracted sparse crowds. To draw 21,649 was a decent effort. Not all of them stayed until the end: even on a balmy August night, the West Midlands can be chilly. The sight of empty seats appearing in greater number from around 7.30pm was not part of the plan. And what of the pink ball? The lack of penetration from West Indian bowlers meant conclusions were hard to reach, although England’s scoring rate of four an over helped quell fears the pink Dukes goes too soft, too soon. When Kemar Roach bowled Root for 136 with a ball that was nearly 75 overs old but still managed to swing a touch, we had our first glimpse of the misbehaviour under lights we had all been promised. This experiment is worth a try. But is England’s heart in it? The tourists in 2018 and 2019 are India and Australia, who don’t need gimmicks to draw crowds. For all the fuss, the jury could be out for some time.