England to host first ever floodlit Test match against West Indies at Edgbaston

Floodlit match
Australia staged the first floodlit Test match Credit: Reuters

England will host their first ever floodlit Test match next summer when the West Indies play at Edgbaston in August.

English cricket will move on from more than a century of tradition by playing a five-day game under lights in the first Test of the three-match Investec Test series against the West Indies in Birmingham starting on Aug 17.

Tickets will go on sale on Monday and the England and Wales Cricket Board is confident this innovation will help the oldest form of the game attract a new audience. The match, which will be played with a pink ball, will start at 2pm and finish at 9pm with a cut off of 9.50pm in case of delays. The ECB hopes supporters will come in after work to watch the final session.

“We have to do whatever we can to make the game more accessible at every level and this gives us the opportunity to find out what impact Test cricket could have when played at a different time of the day in a city centre,” said Tom Harrison, the ECB chief executive.

“We have got to embrace opportunities as and when they come. We do not know what the impact of this is going to be. It would be great to think we will have five lovely summer evenings in a row to enable an audience who have not been able to get to Test cricket throughout the day to potentially come in and see the last session. I am sure it will drive some different thinking about how tickets are sold and it will have an impact on the ability of families to come and watch cricket.” 

It is a move that will alarm traditionalists already worried about the ECB’s plan to introduce a city-based Twenty20 tournament as English cricket goes through its most radical phase of modernisation in a generation.

Floodlit Test cricket was initially aimed at improving audiences in warmer climates than England but the sluggish ticket sales outside of the Oval and Lord’s have persuaded the ECB it needs to try something different and playing at the height of the school holidays, when the weather should be at its most reliable, is seen as a chance to reinvigorate the five-day game.

“We will convert those who are less than convinced about it,” said Harrison. “We will work hard to make sure we do not tread on traditions. This is all about embracing tradition and to make more of Test cricket. 

“It is being played outside London because in London we put a Test on and it sells out. Outside London it is not as straightforward as that. Maybe this also helps break into some of those communities that have not been to Test cricket at Edgbaston before.” 

The first ever floodlit Test took place in Adelaide last winter when Australia beat New Zealand but both teams had to be persuaded with a huge prize pot to play. 

floodlights
England and West Indies will have two warm-up games before the floodlit clash

The trial was deemed a success, although players had reservations even after the match, with 120,000 fans watching the Test at the Adelaide Oval and Channel Nine enjoying bumper viewing figures in the evening session with an average of 3.10m tuning in to the last day’s action, surpassing even the Melbourne Cup.

Australia will play two floodlit Tests this winter in Adelaide against South Africa and Pakistan in Brisbane. They are planning to hold the first day-night Ashes Test in 2017-18 so it is vital that England play their own floodlit match before then to have some exposure to the pink ball.

England and the West Indies will play warm-up games next summer against county opposition to give them a chance to play with the pink ball before the Test match. The West Indies are likely to play against Derbyshire with England’s opponents yet to be decided.

A Test match against the West Indies would have been a hard sell for Warwickshire, especially as already that summer England will have hosted the Champions Trophy and four Tests against South Africa. But this move should help the county to sell tickets and ensure it is a profitable Test.

Harrison has promised a big marketing campaign around the match and for the first time the ECB has persuaded all the counties to put Test match tickets on sale on the same day (Monday) to try to create an impact.

The pink ball has been controversial since the MCC started work on it in 2007. It used the season curtain raiser against the champion county in the UAE to trial the ball but there were complaints from players that it was hard to see and deteriorated quickly. 

Work has been done to improve its durability although players from New Zealand and Australia had problems with it in Adelaide and the game only lasted three days.

There are plans to change the colour of the stitching from green and white to black to help players pick it up under lights. The ECB had hoped to trial the pink ball in county cricket last summer but were unable to nail down a fixture. Instead a second-team match at Edgbaston was played under lights and the ECB was happy with the result. 

Testing has shown the floodlights will take over from the natural light for three-quarters of play after tea.

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