New Delhi, October 11
Cricket Australia (CA) has announced that three Sheffield Shield matches will be played under lights this season to help domestic players get used to day-night conditions, as there will now be at least one pink-ball Test in Australia each summer.
The matches are scheduled at Adelaide Oval, the Gabba, and Bellerive Oval. Adelaide and the Gabba have been the chosen venues for pink-ball Tests in recent summers.
Unfortunately, the timing of these matches means that none of Australia's current Test players will get pink-ball practice before the Test season, even though most will play at least one Shield match before the Tests.
South Australia and Western Australia will play a day-night pink-ball match at Adelaide Oval on November 23, two weeks before the day-night Test between Australia and India at the same venue. However, no current Australian Test players will be involved as November 23 match clashes with the first Test in Perth.
Queensland will play Victoria at the Gabba on November 24. This match might feature Michael Neser and Scott Boland, who have experience in pink-ball Tests and might play for Australia this summer depending on the fitness of the main Australian fast bowlers.
Tasmania and New South Wales will play a day-night match at Bellerive Oval in Hobart starting on March 15.
Australia's ODI players will have just returned from the Champions Trophy and are unlikely to be available, but Nathan Lyon might play depending on his recovery from five Tests against India and a two-Test tour of Sri Lanka.
"We are always exploring opportunities to further enhance the experience for domestic players and best-prepare them for the challenges of international cricket," CA's head of national teams Ben Oliver said, as per quoted by ESPNcricinfo.
"Playing first-class matches at Test venues is important, and so too is exposure to day-night conditions which have become a feature of the Australian Test summer over the past decade," Oliver added.
"With that in mind, we felt it was the right time to re-introduce day-night Sheffield Shield matches for our next group of international cricketers," he noted, as per quoted by ESPNcricinfo.
Day-night Shield rounds were consistently scheduled between 2013-14 and 2017-18, following trials of day-night first-class cricket in the 1990s with yellow and orange balls.
Recently, pink-ball games have been reserved for Australia A, Prime Minister's XI, or CA XI matches against touring teams.