Steve Smith not excited by the prospect of Day-night Ashes matches
Jun 8, 2016 at 11:11 PM
Australian skipper, Steve Smith has expressed his excitement to play the day-night test against South Africa this year but at the same time warned the officials against overdosing on the format and called for the Ashes matches to be played exclusively as day matches.
Australia will lock horns against South Africa under lights in Adelaide in November in the third and final match of their Test series before facing Pakistan in a day-night Test at the Gabba in the opening match of their three-match series.
Smith said that the Ashes series is very popular among the fans and so there is no need to change its format.
“The crowds and the viewers for the regular Ashes Test matches are pretty good,” Smith said in Guyana.
There’s a bit to be talked about there, but it’s still a little while away. We’ll wait and see what happens with that one.
“My personal preference probably would be, yeah (to keep the Ashes to day-only Tests). “I think it works pretty well with the red ball. It’s been around for years and I think playing against England we always get the viewers and the crowds out.
“So I don’t think there is any issue there. But I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.”
A couple of months ago, Cricket Australia Chief Executive Officer James Sutherland said that a day-night Ashes Test in the 2017-18 summer is possible.
“I think over the course of the next 12 months or so we’ll see day-night Test cricket being played in other countries other than Australia,” Sutherland said in April when announcing the 2016-17 summer schedule.
“I’m really confident that other member boards are very keen to do that. “As we’ve talked about, there’s going be more (day-night) Test cricket played into future and it will be a part of regular series.
“And it may well be that there is a day-night Test match in the Ashes series in 2017-18.”