Cricket in the pink with all eyes on Australia v New Zealand

John Stephenson, head of cricket at the Marylebone Cricket Club, which is the guardian of the laws of the game, hopes the day-night format can expand to other countries on the back of this match. A thoroughly good thing for the source of much debate in Australia of recent – the pink ball.

But pink-ball Test matches could just be the start of a cricket revolution, if some visionaries have their way.

And Hough revealed that the wicket ought to bring more of a balance between bat and ball.

So, credit to Australia and New Zealand that they have made a decision to do this.

Day-night tests, pink balls, four-day tests, limiting the first innings to 100 overs, doing away with the toss, giving the visiting team first option – the ideas range from the reasonable to the too exotic, but they have in common energised thinking on the future direction of the game. On the eve of the big occasion, however with the pink ball now a certainty, the concerns have disappeared.

Australia and New Zealand will contest the first such Test in Adelaide this week, with a pink Kookaburra ball to be used after being tested as the best colour for visibility under the varying light.

While Cricket Australia immediately boosted the medical presence at grounds and now requires all players to wear a helmet that meets stringent safety standards, Neil D’Costa, Hughes’s long-time coach and mentor said he was still not convinced it was enough. On top of this, the fact that the ICC Intercontinental Cup, the first-class tournament for the leading Associate and Affiliate teams, now offers a pathway to Test cricket for the winning side of the latest edition has the potential to add further to the story of Test cricket. “He was sick the night before, he was sick that morning, but he had to play because there was a Test match around the corner”.

“It doesn’t react anything like the red ball, in terms of swing and the hardness of it anyway”. “It’s going to be a different story playing here and I think you’ll see the ball move around a bit off the wicket”. “I think for us now a year on we still have Hughesy in the back of our minds every time we walk out on the field”, he said. “It is a big experiment”.

Kohli said it was a step forward that could change Test cricket.

“I’m sure they’ll refine it and tweak it and in a few years time they’ll probably land upon something that works”.

Players and officials acknowledge Test cricket as the pinnacle of the game but have been powerless to arrest a decline in crowds in most established markets. Australia had won the series opener quite easily at Brisbane but New Zealand were able to match the hosts toe-to-toe in the second Test match at Perth.