{"id":411121,"date":"2026-01-14T00:17:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T00:17:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/411121\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T00:17:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T00:17:07","slug":"ashes-england-plan-to-reject-day-night-test-using-a-pink-ball-under-lights-in-2029-30-series-in-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/411121\/","title":{"rendered":"Ashes: England plan to reject day-night Test using a pink ball under lights in 2029-30 series in Australia"},"content":{"rendered":"

England and Australia are due to play a one-off day-night Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in March 2027 to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the first ever Test at the same venue. <\/p>\n

Those plans were originally unveiled<\/a> in August 2024 and it is understood England will get the opportunity to play a warm-up match before the showpiece MCG fixture.<\/p>\n

The decision to play that anniversary match as a day-night Test has not been a universally popular one, though, which might prompt a rethink.<\/p>\n

BBC Sport has been told that one influential ex-Australia player has directly voiced concerns to Cricket Australia and urged them to consider switching the match to a red-ball game.<\/p>\n

Pink-ball Tests do hold appeal to broadcasters given the viewer friendly time-slot and figures for the Ashes Test in Brisbane were higher than the matches in Perth and Adelaide.<\/p>\n

However, CA do not have contractual agreements with host broadcasters in Australia – Seven and Fox – to have an annual pink-ball Test.<\/p>\n

Australia are due to host Bangladesh and New Zealand in 2026-27 and none of those eight Tests will be pink-ball games.<\/p>\n

Day-night Tests were sanctioned by the International Cricket Council in 2015 in the hope audiences would be “encouraged and improved”.<\/p>\n

The concept has been embraced in Australia. Fourteen of the 25 day-night Tests to have been played have been there.<\/p>\n

Australia also have an outstanding record in day-night Tests, winning 14 of their 15 worldwide. England have won two of their seven, including four defeats in Australia.<\/p>\n

On the eve of the second Test in Brisbane, England batter Joe Root questioned<\/a> whether the Ashes needed a pink-ball Test.<\/p>\n

“A series like this, does it need it? I don’t think so, but it doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be here either,” Root told Test Match Special.<\/p>\n

Despite the different colours, the pink and red balls used in Australia do not offer different amounts of swing and seam movement to pace bowlers.<\/p>\n

The challenge for batters is seeing the pink ball under floodlights. Australia left-arm quick Mitchell Starc has taken more wickets than any other bowler in day-night Tests, partly because of the number of deliveries he bowls above 87mph.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"England and Australia are due to play a one-off day-night Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in March…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":411122,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-411121","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-cricket","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=411121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411121\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/411122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=411121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=411121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=411121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}