In a radical move aimed at regenerating interest in regional cricket, four matches in next season’s first-class tournament will be played under floodlights using a pink ball, the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) announced yesterday.
“Spectator interest in regional matches has been declining in recent years and we are looking at different ways to organise our tournaments and ensure greater value for all our stakeholders, including players and spectators,” WICB chief executive Ernest Hilaire said in a media release.
“We at the WICB aim to bring the game back to the fans and we believe the new format of having day/night cricket in the four-day tournament will help to generate public interest and also be a winner with the players and officials,” he added.
Hilaire said that data on the impact of the West Indies experience on players, spectators and match officials and would be reviewed at the end of the tournament and “compared to experiences with other formats used over the last decade.”
Matches have been scheduled for the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium in Antigua, the Three Ws Oval in Barbados, Providence Stadium in Guyana and the Beausejours Stadium in St.Lucia. The Queen’s Park Oval and Guaracara Park in Trinidad, Warner Park in St.Kitts and Kensington Oval in Barbados are the only grounds with lights that are not scheduled for a day-night match.
The new plan follows the revelation last week that the traditional opening match of the 2010 English season, between the MCC and county champions, Durham, would also be day-night under floodlights and using a pink ball, in the Arab state of Abu Dhabi from March 29-April 1.
MCC head of cricket John Stephenson predicted that it could pave the way for day-night Test cricket in the future. MCC secretary Keith Bradshaw noted that day-night Test cricket would only be possible if a ball was developed that could be used.
“We’ve done a lot of research on the ball and we’re at a point where we’re about to try out a ball we believe will last more than 50 overs and behave the same way as a red ball, because we’ve now discovered how to fuse the dye into the leather,” he said.
The concept of Test cricket at night has been long since mooted. As the traditional red ball is unsuitable, there have been several experiments with other colours, all unsuccessful until now.
Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket played so-called SuperTests over four day/nights in 1977-78 with a white ball. But it proved unsatisfactory as the ball gradually became tarnished.
An orange ball was tested in Australian domestic cricket for a season but was also deemed a failure as were initial trials with the pink ball in Australia and England. Like the white ball, they also lost their colour.
Recent developments appear to have found a solution and results of the use of the pink ball in the four matches in the West Indies and the MCC match in Abu Dhabi will be carefully monitored.
It was already known that the still unsponsored tournament would revert to one round, ending the home-and-away format of last season. According to Hilaire, this would pose “less logistical and physical challenges with travel and hotel arrangements”.
The idea was to create what Hilaire called “a cricket festival atmosphere to offer more scope for sponsorship and event promotion”.
Although he acknowledged that the organisation of the day-night matches presented difficulties, the chief executive said the WICB had to be “brave and try new things and approaches”.
“We are hoping to breathe new life into West Indies cricket at all levels and a major part of that is to get fans coming back to the game they love,” he said. “We are looking at ways of re-engineering the game and raising the standards on and off the field.”
“We will also be looking to utilise some of the wonderful facilities we have in the region as we seek to develop players who will be able to represent the people of the Caribbean at the highest level,” he added.
THE ITINERARY
Round 1: January 8-11 in Jamaica
Jamaica vs Windward Islands
Trinidad and Tobago vs Combined Campuses and Colleges (CCC)
Barbados vs Leeward Islands
Round 2: January 15-18 in Leeward Islands
Jamaica vs Leeward Islands – St Kitts or Antigua
Barbados vs CCC – St Kitts
Guyana vs Trinidad and Tobago – Antigua (day/night)
Round 3: January 22-25 in Barbados
Barbados vs Trinidad and Tobago
Windward Islands vs CCC
Jamaica vs Guyana
Round 4: January 29-February 1 in Barbados (hosted by CCC)
CCC vs Guyana
Trinidad and Tobago vs Leeward Islands
Windward Islands vs Barbados (day/night)
Round 5: February 12-15 in Guyana
Guyana vs Barbados
CCC vs Jamaica (day/night)
Leeward Islands vs Windward Islands
Round 6: February 19-22 in Trinidad
Trinidad and Tobago vs Windward Islands
Barbados vs Jamaica
Guyana vs Leeward Islands
Round 7: February 26-March 1 in Windward Islands
Guyana vs Windward Islands in Grenada
Trinidad and Tobago vs Jamaica in Grenada
CCC vs Leeward Islands in St Lucia (day/night)
