Saturday 7th Dec, 2024
Cue spooky music and prepare to step through the locked door… English cricket is about to enter the Test Twilight Zone, where strange things can happen. At the Adelaide Oval in 2015, the highest score between Australia and New Zealand was 224 and the Test was over inside three days; in Dubai last year, West Indies’ first taste of day-night Tests, Azhar Ali scored the first pink-ball triple-hundred; a few weeks later, again in Adelaide, Faf du Plessis declared South Africa’s first innings during the final session of the opening day. More fantastical still, Pakistan came within 40 runs of chasing 490 to beat Australia at the Gabba in December 2016.
So what will Edgbaston serve up for England’s first experience of this eye-catching format tweak? Stuart Broad articulated the uncertainties for the home side when he described it as a step into the unknown and while West Indies are unlikely to talk up their chances too much, they will have the edge in understanding how the pink ball plays. In their last warm-up match, against Derbyshire, they had four batsmen score hundreds whilst bowling out the opposition cheaply – although Shannon Gabriel’s problem with overstepping was a cause for concern.
England should come into the game high on confidence, having just defeated South Africa 3-1, but there ought to be no room for complacency – and not only because of how they’ll react to the pink pill. Mark Stoneman, the Surrey opener, will make his debut as England’s search for a long-term opening partner for Alastair Cook continues, and that is just one of three or four positions that Joe Root will want nailed to the table before setting off for an Ashes defence this winter. This will be a big series for the likes of Tom Westley, Dawid Malan and Toby Roland-Jones, too.
Root will also know not to underestimate West Indies on the basis of their last encounter, when they held England to a 1-1 draw in the Caribbean after being talked down as “mediocre” opposition in the build-up. Jason Holder, West Indies’ captain, set the tone with a match-saving hundred in Antigua and then he and his fellow quicks helped bowl them to a series-levelling victory in Bridgetown. The selectors haven’t yet recalled the recently un-retired Jerome Taylor, but Kemar Roach is back, after 18 months out of the Test side, and the tourists have a pace battery to keep England on their toes. Edgbaston under floodlights might help to put them in the pink.
The wider context, of course, encompasses the future of the Test game. Ticket sales have been healthy and the Birmingham public seems ready to embrace the concept (or at least give it a whirl). Will they get an Edgbaston classic? Well, stranger things have happened.