Cricket Australia gives go-ahead to Pat Cummins and Co’s first-ever abroad day-night Test against West Indies

Cricket Australia (CA) has given a go-ahead for the men’s team to play a day-night Test against the West Indies in June. The three-match series kicks off in Barbados on June 25, followed by the second Test in Grenada before the culmination at Jamaica’s Sabina Park for the third and final game, which will be a pink-ball Test match. Cricket West Indies (CWI) chief executive Chris Dehring mentioned that the team intends to go one better having shocked Australia in the Gabba Test 15 months ago.

Jamaica Cricket Association president Dr Donovan Bennett recently admitted that Sabina Park wasn’t fit to host international cricket, especially the previous lights system with the floodlights and hence, didn’t apply to host last year’s T20 World Cup. However, after the allocation of the Test match, the work began on installing the scoreboard and new lights. However, the work that was supposed to be done by January has faced delays but Bennett was confident of the venue being ready to host the day-night Test and bring crowds to one of the biggest islands in the region.

“Sabina Park has been in decline over the past few years,” Bennett told SportsMax recently. “We’re without a scoreboard and the present lighting we have is inadequate to hold international cricket (at night). The entire lighting system needs to be and will be changed out in time for the Australian tour … we definitely need to have the lights up and running before then.”

Cricket Australia’s scheduling in-charge Peter Roach said that a go-ahead has been given but was waiting for final confirmation from CWI regarding the new lighting system. 

“We’re open to it. We’re awaiting further information from Cricket West Indies about the successful installation of the new lights at Sabina Park. But we encourage teams to play day-night cricket here in Australia once a season so when an opportunity to reciprocate comes up, we are very supportive.

“The planned lighting specifications look more than adequate to host day-night Test cricket and provided these are met then CWI and CA are aligned on playing the match as a day-night Test,” Roach added.

A total of 23 day-night Tests have taken place over the last decade with Australia playing 13 of them. This will be Australia’s first-ever overseas day-night Test before the Ashes encounter at the Gabba later this year, the two-time World Test championship finalists will get a great look at it. For the West Indies, this will be only the second home day-night Test and fifth overall.