Aus vs NZ, pink-ball Test: Dreaming with floodlights on
Illustration By CR Sasikumar
After tea at the Adelaide Oval, with the sun fading and the floodlights half-lit, Test cricket faced its moment of truth. It was 4.30 on the clock perched on the iconic Edwardian scoreboard, that century-old heritage edifice at the Cathedral End which had survived the stadium’s latest soulless facelift. Since 1884, when this venue hosted its first international game, this had always been that hour when the crowd spilled out of the stadium, animated in their recollection of day that was fast fading out.
Today, at 4.30 pm they were entering the stadium. Chatty with anticipation of the night ahead. They had never-seen-before ‘twilight tickets’ that didn’t charge them for the opening session they had missed. Cricket Australia was being considerate towards conscientious students and office-goers who just had time for the final two sessions. Those who bunked classes, or work, to catch cricket ; those who prided themselves for watching the first ball of the Test were either dead, aging or being written off as tragics. Test cricket wanted new fans.
Like that popular teenager T20, the 138-year-old was now being positioned as an after-hours de-stress alternative or late-evening family outing option. At least for now, in Adelaide, it seemed to be working. Eager undecided fans, many edgy advocates of this change and seated in VIP lounges, the sharp opportunity-seekers in the corporate boxes — made for the thousands who couldn’t afford to miss cricket’s leap of faith. The third and final game of New Zealand’s rather low-key tour to Australia in November had the buzz of a Boxing Day Test.
Maybe, it was bigger, the unprecedented global interest increasing the profile of this Trans-Tansman contest. The world watched Adelaide to see how Test cricket looked in new clothes. They wondered if this was the future. They were apprehensive if this was the beginning of the end of the way they had followed Tests. To catch the oldest format live, you left home early. Now, you would think of the last train and night-charge.
The first session on the very grassy Adelaide pitch had shown that Test cricket’s new avatar — played from 2 pm to 9 pm under lights with pink balls —wasn’t just a shift-change that would spoil the sleeping pattern of players and fans. These early hours of Test cricket’s big transition had the potential to dump the old Test template for good.
By stumps, Australia had reached 23/1 after they had dismissed New Zealand for 234. Countless teams have collapsed for less on Day One of Tests but this cricketing narrative was very different.
The end of the day scoreboard doesn’t tell you the real story, it didn’t even give you the real headline. If the day and night Test becomes more frequent, a dream that the men in sharp suits cherish, that old book of conventional cricketing wisdom will need to go the archives section way and Mike Brearley perhaps will have to rewrite a few chapters on the The Art of Captaincy.
Before going to the day’s crucial period of play, that 4.30 phase when the twilight ticket-holders settled down, a bit about the session the late-comers missed. Nothing seemed like old. Players in whites had names and numbers on their back.
The Channel 9 pre-game show wasn’t stressing the importance of the first hour. They didn’t talk about the early assistance to pacers, moisture on the pitch that would lend ‘carry’ to the ball or the morning breeze that aided swing. Here, when the openers took guard, a couple of hours after noon, the pitch would be dried and caking. Test under floodlights needed new new ideas, fresh perspective. Those wise cricket pundits, the former players, for once hadn’t been there or done it. They were among the clueless millions. Day and night Test, was the real leveler.
Win the toss, bowl
Steve Smith after winning the toss had said ‘we will bowl’ with the same easy promptitude as captains for centuries before this day had spontaneously expressed their interest in batting first. Despite the early breakthrough — Josh Hazelwood getting Kiwi opener Martin Guptill in the 5th over when a ball kept its line and didn’t move away as the batsman thought — Smith showed this tearing hurry to get the spinner Nathan Lyon. He had his reasons. The sun was out, batting was easy as Mitchell Starc, Hazelwood and Peter Siddle weren’t yet friends with the pink ball that wasn’t moving much. Besides, he knew that his finger spinner, Lyon, would be troubled by dew in the second and third evening session.
With the Big Babol pink colour on the leather fading quickly and seam less-prominent, difficult to spot, Lyon would be tough to pick. The in-form Williamson survived, he was dropped at point as the fielder failed to spot the pink ball in the background of the crowded stands. Latham didn’t, he was fooled by one that took a sharp turn, caught bat and pad at short leg. Cricket’s old eruditions were passe for Tests under lights. The first session was for the spinners and, as was proved later in the day, pacers ruled the mid-session with the post-supper phase the most intriguing.
The Mumbai maidan logic of batting — first two session for bowlers, last for the batsman — too was turned on its head. The first session was the best to score, it was the easy takeaway from the Day 1. At tea, yes that’s what they call the first 20 minute break, the Kiwis, because they were understandably cautious, were 94/2.
When the players took the field for the second session, from Adelaide to Dubai cricket’s officials would have had their fingers crossed. The visibility of the pink ball at dusk was the big hurdle in making day and night Test a convention and not a one-off tamasha. Cricket’s big plan depended on this period of play, which in turn hinged on how Williamson and Ross Taylor played Starc and Hazelwood. All of November, batsmen had whispered how that battered pink ball was difficult to spot when bowled at express pace, especially when the stadium was lit by a combination of natural and artificial light. After 25 overs the first session, the brown patches on the pink had grown. Starc, meanwhile, in the last Test had bowled the fastest ball ever in a Test match.
In his second over after tea, Williamson was slow in bringing his bat down to a Starc full length ball that just missed the stumps. The two batsmen would meet mid-pitch with nervous smiles. A couple of balls later, Williamson repeated the mistake, this time the ball was straight. The stumps shattered, he would walk back to the pavilion shaking his head. A ball later, skipper Brendon McCullum, too would take the same route. The stumps behind him scattered further away this time, the expression on his face more bemused. In a ball that brought back memories of the World Cup final earlier this year, Starc hit the bottom of the stumps, McCullum did get the bat down on time but missed the line.
In the space of two balls, New Zealand had gone from 110/2 to 110/4. Hazelwood would make this worse, by forcing a tentative Taylor to edge one behind the stumps. At 115/5, Adelaide was on its feet. The bars were noisy, the Kiwi section had gone silent. The debates in the mixed sections were fierce. Some blamed the batsmen while making Starc the hero, the other blamed it on the twilight, the pink ball and ofcourse, the ICC. After the floodlights were in full glow, the fall of wickets was less frequent.
Later order partnership between Southee and Bolt took New Zealand to 234. The pink ball continued to dance around and even after it was changed once, batsmen continued to struggle. It wasn’t impossible but the twilight mishap had made the batsmen circumspect. It was a fascinating period of play as batsmen dug deep to discover a new dimension of their skills. The slow crawl made the crowd restless, a few left. On the hill a banner went up that said, “Big Bores play at night”.
Much after the game got over, the fans stayed back, celebrating their presence on the sidelines of the historic game.
They still spoke about the three wickets after lunch and they continued to debate if it was Starc or the ball that was responsible for the mini-collapse.
They sounded like fans who were trying to find T20 moments in a Test. Will they have the patience to return and to wait for those rare exciting phases hidden between long periods of lull? But before that ICC needs to figure out, if it was Starc or the pink ball that was responsible for the twilight collapse.
