In October 2012, the International Cricket Council formally green-lit the idea of day-night Tests, offering a new, potentially lucrative spin on the oldest format. “This is all about new audiences and doing all we could to make the game more accessible at every level,” said the England and Wales Cricket Board’s then chief executive, Tom Harrison, when he announced his side’s first pink-ball game a few years later.
James Sutherland, Cricket Australia’s chief executive, welcomed the change from a status quo in which “Test cricket is played at times when most people are at work or school. We limit ourselves by staging cricket’s premium format at times when fans often can not watch.”
