Day-Night Tests will force captains to think differently in terms of tactics & strategies

Hasty declarations as the floodlights come on; sending in night-watchman of a different kind to bat out some of the dark overs before the better batsmen take charge as the evening draws to an end; reversal of batting order and so on can make Test cricket decidedly more experimental and interesting in Day-Night Tests © Getty Images

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ICC’s decision to allow Day-Night Test matches can make the longest version of the game extremely interesting. Arunabha Sengupta analyses the way batsmen have batted under lights in ODIs and predicts whole new approaches captains and teams may adapt to deal with the new conditions of play. 

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The International Cricket Council’s (ICC) decision to give go ahead to Day-Night Test matches with coloured balls is a much-needed breath of fresh air for cricket. Especially when the game has been gasping in the stifling atmosphere, made murkier by the gamut of Twenty20 affairs.

It is definitely a decision that will have far-reaching effects in ways as yet undetermined. While such innovation is an absolute necessity for a sport to evolve, the move does have the potential to change the game forever. And I am not talking about the return of the spectators, the colour of the ball or the darkness of the sky.

The elements have been called cricket’s presiding geniuses by Neville Cardus. With the advent of the Day-Night Test matches, much of the powers of these uncontrollable devices of nature will be constrained. If it rains, obviously the game will still have to be disrupted – but not for dark skies and fading light. The light-meter will not be used to call off a day’s play, and the morning moisture in the wicket will perhaps be restricted only to day Tests. At the same time, the dew factor will have plenty of say, especially when spinners are out bowling long spells well into the night.

There will be factors relating to adapting to the radically new conditions of play, but what will perhaps be most intriguing is the way captains strategise – grappling with the new conditions governing the game.

The biggest question will be batting

And answers are not simple.

We have become so used to Day-Night limited overs matches that we often assume that batting under flood-lights is equivalent to the same act performed under the sun. But, it is decidedly not so. The cricket world is aware of that, and so are the captains.

A few statistics will make things clear.

There is a distinct advantage for teams batting second in One-Day Internationals played in normal light and it reverses in favour of the team batting first in Day-Night matches. It is no wonder that many captains vouch that it is better to bat in natural light. This trend makes for remarkable statistics related to decisions surrounding the toss.

On 59% of the occasions, teams have opted to field in a Day match. However, the percentage plummets to 27% when the match is a Day Night encounter.

Hence, not too many are keen to bat under lights – very, very significantly so.

In Test matches, where circumstances are decidedly more serious, there are bound to be tactics that try to ensure maximum batting time in natural light.

At least during the initial stage of adaptation, there are bound to be batsmen hesitant to walk in under the floodlights. Each innings in Test cricket still has more at stake than a similar outing in an ODI. And if the track record of ODIs is anything to go by, batsmen did take a considerable amount of time to get acclimatised to batting under the lights.

Runs scored while chasing

Since target setting almost always takes place in natural light in both Day and Day-Night matches, we have considered the second innings for each in our analysis.

As we can see, the average runs scored per wicket while chasing has been significantly more for Day matches as opposed to Day-Night matches. With time, the strike-rate has caught up and since 2000 chases in Day-Night matches have been slightly quicker. But, this transition has been a gradual process, and the same can be expected in Test matches. And it won’t be surprising to see a scramble for ways and means to allow the best batsmen to bat under the sun.

Finally, let us see how the individual batsmen have performed.

Below we have the list of 20 top run-getters in chases in the history of the ODI game, and the same has been split into Day matches and Day-Night matches.

Only five among them – Sachin Tendulkar, Sanath Jayasuriya, Aravinda de Silva, Rahul Dravid and Stephen Fleming – fare better in Day-Night chases than Day chases. In some cases, such as for Desmond Haynes, the drop in average while chasing is very drastic.

It is an undeniable fact that batsmen like batting in natural sunlight. In a Day-Night ODI, the team batting second has little choice. They have to play their entire innings in artificial light.

However, in Day-Night Tests, there will be the option to preserve the better batsmen till they can spend longer periods under the sun.

Hasty declarations as the floodlights come on; sending in night-watchman of a different kind – to bat out some of the dark overs before the better batsmen take charge as the evening draws to an end; reversal of batting order and so on can make Test cricket decidedly more experimental and interesting.

(Arunabha Sengupta is cricket historian and Chief Cricket Writer at CricketCountry. He writes about the history and the romance of the game, punctuated often by opinions about modern day cricket, while his post-graduate degree in statistics peeps through in occasional analytical pieces. The author of three novels, he can be followed on Twitter at http://twitter.com/senantix)