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The lights

from Cathy (cathyvpreece@aol.com)

Times

June 16, 2003

The lights

The pyjama game

By Ivo Tennant

WHATEVER THE PROCLAMATIONS OF Kerry Packer and his World Series Cricket (WSC) henchmen, cricket under lights did not originate in Australia. At the Oval in 1889, play on the second day of Surrey’s match against Yorkshire was extended until 7pm because neither captain wanted to return the next morning. It was late August and already pretty dark, but the lighting of the gas lamps in the surrounding streets of Kennington enabled the batsman to see the ball and the bowler to locate the stumps. This early use of artificial light was followed, albeit not until well into the next century, by floodlit tennis and baseball in America. In England, a Football League fixture was not played under lights until 1956. Day/night cricket began at the end of the 1970s to a backdrop, according to Richie Benaud, “of intense and more than slightly mocking laughter”. That mirth subsided when, apparently, 52,000 spectators tried to enter the Sydney Cricket Ground in 1978 to watch the first WSC match held in a traditional cricket oval. Packer threw open the turnstiles when it became clear the evening would be a sell-out and in Australia the concept never looked back.

According to Wisden, “English reactions ranged from distaste to prescience.” In The Times, John Woodcock observed that Australians, “being always early with their evening meal, were well suited by night-time sport”. Black sightscreens, the white ball, pyjamas on the field were there to stay. In England, where distaste for Packer was even greater, none of this caught on, although there was an occasional attempt at a competition on a football ground but the uncertain English weather and the twilight of midsummer, which assisted neither the batsman nor the spectacle, counted against experimentation.

An international sixes tournament was staged at the Oval in 1994 that attracted a paltry turnout on a chilly September evening and was abandoned amid recriminations the following morning. Then, in 1997, Warwickshire were bold enough to stage a Sunday League fixture under temporary lights. They were fortunate: July 23 was one of the warmest evenings of the year and 15,174 spectators attended, bringing in £120,000. No matter that the match itself was unexceptional or that the attempts of Surrey and Sussex to stage floodlit matches that same summer were blighted by the weather. Or that dissent continued from prominent voices such as that of Peter Edwards, the late Essex secretary/general manager, who said: “We’ll be having bouncy castles on the outfield next.”

There was no turning back now. Three years later, the first official day/night international was staged in England: decent weather in Bristol attracted a crowd of 7,000 to watch Zimbabwe play West Indies. In the interval, no doubt to the horror of the Edwardses of the world, a game of giant rollerball was staged, the spheres similar in concept to the exercise bubble used by pet hamsters.

As English cricketers came to play more regularly under lights, so their game and know-how improved. So, no doubt, did the quality of the lights themselves. It is rare to hear nowadays that a batsman cannot sight a ball, although his preference is still to bat in daylight. It is recognised that the ball will move more at the start of the second innings, when there could be dew on the ground and less balminess in the air. Hence the dispensation granted to drag a rope through the outfield.

Judging catches when the ball is coming out of the lights can be tricky, but then that is the case if the ball is coming out of the sun. Pylons remain eyesores, but they are tolerated. So, too, if not by older members or the St John’s Wood Society who keep a beady eye on Lord’s, are musical “stings” at the fall of a wicket. It is widely believed that batting first in a day/night match constitutes a considerable advantage, but the statistics do not bear that out. No particular pattern emerges in matches played around the world other than that the stronger countries generally win.

In Sydney in January this year, for example, England made 117 and Australia reached their target without loss after just 12.2 overs. A month later, in the World Cup, England again had first innings, scoring 246 for eight, and Pakistan were dismissed for 134. Of England’s past 35 floodlit fixtures, they have won 12, lost 22 and one has finished without a conclusive result.

(posted 7592 days ago)

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