Pink ball returns to Shield ahead of day-night Tests

The Sheffield Shield will use a pink ball for the first time in seven years, with states to play under lights at the Gabba and Adelaide Oval ahead of upcoming day-night Tests at those venues over the next two summers.

Cricket Australia today announced next month's Shield games between South Australia and Western Australia in Adelaide, and the Queensland-Victoria match in Brisbane, will be day-night matches.

The other round-five fixture between Tasmania and New South Wales will remain a day game given the unlikelihood of the SCG hosting day-night Tests.

But the return Blues-Tigers match scheduled for mid-March in Hobart, where a pink-ball Test was played during the 2021-22 Ashes series, will now be a pink-ball game to ensure all six states play one match under lights.

Day-night Sheffield Shield matches, 2024-25

 

November 23-26: South Australia v Western Australia | Adelaide Oval

 

November 24-27: Queensland v Victoria | Gabba

 

March 15-18: Tasmania v New South Wales | Bellerive Oval

The two November day-night Shield games will be played concurrently with the opening Border-Gavaskar Trophy Test in Perth.

That means the bulk of Australia's team for the second Test under lights in Adelaide against India will not have had a chance to reacquaint themselves with the pink Kookaburra in match conditions.

India on the other hand have a two-day pink-ball match scheduled against the Prime Minister's XI in Canberra between the first and second Tests.

The Gabba day-night Shield match meanwhile comes ahead of next summer's Ashes campaign, when the Brisbane venue will host England in a day-night Test for the first time.

There was at least one day-night Shield round for five seasons between 2013-14 and 2017-18 but since then only occasional tour matches have featured a pink ball, typically to prepare visiting teams for a day-night Test.

Australia's enthusiasm for the format is something of an outlier in world cricket.

They have hosted eight of the past 12 day-night Tests and were undefeated in their first 11 pink-ball games before West Indies beat them at the Gabba in January.

CA said the Shield fixture changes were made in collaboration with states. 

"We are always exploring opportunities to further enhance the experience for domestic players and best-prepare them for the challenges of international cricket," national teams manager Ben Oliver said.

"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.

“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."