NEW DELHI: When Australia and New Zealand players step out at the Adelaide Oval in the afternoon of November 27 to play the first ever Day/Night Test match with pink kookaburra, there will be another little first that will be associated with the ‘Game of Glorious Uncertainties’.
In 138 years of Test cricket, the first break has always been the lunch followed by the tea break but these breaks will witness a ‘role reversal’ during the Test match. For a change, the break after the first session will be for tea with the duration being 20 minutes. It will happen at 4 pm local Adelaide time.
The ‘dinner’ break may be rightfully called the ‘supper break’, will happen at 6:20 pm and will be of 40 minutes duration with the final session happening from 7 pm to 9 pm fully under floodlights.
India’s only day-night first-class match was the Ranji Trophy final between Mumbai and Delhi played with white ball at the Roop Singh Stadium in Gwalior from April 5-9, 1997. For the record, Mumbai won the Ranji Trophy by virtue of first innings lead. The BCCI did not try day-night first-class matches after that.
Success Depends on Players: Clarke
Former Australia captain Michael Clarke feels that the viability of day-night Test cricket will be decided by the players. “I think I’ve probably grown with the idea,” Clarke said in the Herald Sun.
“It’s exciting to try it. I think we’ve just got to let the players tell us whether they think it worked or not. They will know more than anyone else.”