Editorial: Real test of pink ball will be the crowd

The red ball of test cricket has proved to be too dark at night and the white ball needs to be played with coloured clothing. So pink makes its debut. Photo / Getty Images

The cricket test between New Zealand and England starting at Eden Park today is not the first to be played at night but it is the first in this country. Five-day cricket has been struggling to attract crowds to matches in most countries for a long time and believes the success of day-night timing in the limited overs game might transfer to the format its followers still call "real cricket".

It will feel strange to them to turn up at 2pm to watch the first ball bowled, and even stranger to see players in white garb continue under floodlights as darkness descends.

They will be playing with a pink ball, which has attracted most of the interest of aficionados. The red ball of test cricket has proved to be too dark at night and the white ball needs to be played with coloured clothing. So pink makes its debut.

Cricket thrives on theories about conditions of the ball, the pitch, the air, humidity and light. Day night test cricket will provide a new dimension to the theories. The experience of eight matches in other countries suggests it is better to bat in the afternoons than the evenings. Only once has a captain sent the opposition in first and the opposition won.
The advantage of starting an innings in daylight might over-ride the usual considerations of how the pitch is likely to change over the course of the match.

But the most interest in this country's first day-night test will be its appeal to spectators. How many will go along to Eden Park after finishing work this evening? How many will take the afternoon off today? If the Black Caps have a good first day, how many will get along to the park tomorrow afternoon and evening? And all going well for the Kiwis, how many will turn up at the weekend?

It would be a mistake, probably, to hope that even at the weekend, day-night test cricket could attract the crowd that go to limited overs games. It is still test cricket, a more even contest between bat and ball. Bowlers are less constrained, batting is harder. Patience, concentration and endurance are essential and time hardly matters until the match is into its fourth or fifth day.

It is an absorbing sport rather than an exciting one, though fortunes can change suddenly at any time. For spectators there is nothing in sport that quite compares to following a five day cricket test. After watching a full day's play, you want to see what happens next.

After two full days you are immersed, the world has contracted to a green oval and the strategies of two teams in a slow, elaborate, intense contest. You keep coming back as long as the result remains in the balance. Interestingly, none of the eight day-night tests to date has finished in a draw.

Doubtless New Zealand Cricket would prefer not to be staging this experiment late in March, when autumn is in the air, the nights are drawing in and the Super Rugby season has started. But so long as limited overs matches are more lucrative, they take priority when touring sides are here. With a little luck the warmth of this long summer will linger well into the evenings for the next five days and nights.

Whatever happens each day in this test match, one thing is assured. Bad light will not stop play.