Lord’s ready to showcase day-night Test cricket with first-class game under the lights

Lord’s is ready to offer a trailer for day-night Test cricket by staging a first-class game under lights.

ECB chairman Colin Graves has opened the door to pink-ball international cricket in this country, with Edgbaston expressing willingness to stage a Test under lights against West Indies next August.

MCC chief executive Derek Brewer stopped short of making Lord’s a candidate for next summer but offered the home of cricket as a possible venue to road-test the day-night game. 

That could be a County Championship match, or a fixture between MCC and a representative side from an up-and-coming cricket country, such as Ireland.

“I would like to have a trial three- or four-day game here first, a first-class game,” Brewer told Standard Sport. “Would it be at the start of next summer? We’d have to talk to the ECB about that. But before we stage a day/night Test match in this country, we need to look at the pink ball. 

“We saw in Australia, where the first day/night Test was staged last year, that there was a huge amount of work done on the Kookaburra ball. 

“I don’t think the same has been done on the pink version of the Dukes ball, which is used here. It’s a little more complex in this country.”