CA schedule day-night Shield games to build pink-ball experience

Cricket Australia has announced that three Sheffield Shield matches will be played under lights this season to give domestic Australian players exposure to day-night conditions given there will be at least one home pink-ball Test per summer moving forward.

The matches have been strategically scheduled at Adelaide Oval, the Gabba and Bellerive Oval, with Adelaide and the Gabba the chosen pink-ball Test venues in recent summers.

However, the timing of the matches means that none of Australia’s current Test team will get pink-ball practice before the Test summer despite most of the team playing at least one Shield match in the build-up.

CA announced that South Australia and Western Australia will play a day-night pink-ball match at Adelaide Oval on November 23, just two weeks before the day-night Test between Australia and India at the same venue. However, there won’t be any current Australian Test players involved as the match clashes with the first Test in Perth.

Queensland will face Victoria at the Gabba on November 24. That game could feature one or both of Michael Neser and Scott Boland who have played pink-ball Test cricket and could be in the frame to play for Australia this summer depending on the fitness of Australia’s incumbent quicks.

Tasmania and New South Wales will play a late-season pink-ball day-night match at Bellerive in Hobart starting on March 15. Australia’s ODI players will have just returned from the Champions Trophy and are unlikely to be available but Nathan Lyon could be available for that game depending on how he has recovered from five Tests against India and a two-Test tour to Sri Lanka.

“We are always exploring opportunities to further enhance the experience for domestic players and best-prepare them for the challenges of international cricket,” CA’s head of national teams Ben Oliver said.

“Playing first-class matches at Test venues is important, and so too is exposure to day-night conditions which have become a feature of the Australian Test summer over the past decade.

“With that in mind, we felt it was the right time to re-introduce day-night Sheffield Shield matches for our next group of international cricketers.”

CA scheduled day-night Shield rounds consistently between 2013-14 and 2017-18, having first trialled day-night first-class cricket back in the 1990s when yellow and orange balls were used.

Pink-ball games have since been reserved for Australia A, Prime Minister’s XI or CA XI matches against touring teams.