Karachi: The Pakistan Cricket Board has dropped its plans of holding day and night Test matches after its proposal to use an orange cricket ball was overruled by the International Cricket Council.
An official source in the board told PTI that Pakistan had experimented a lot with pink and orange coloured balls in domestic cricket and suggested the use of the orange ball in Tests but ICC did not approve of it.
"The ICC after conducting its own tests ruled that pink coloured balls were more usable for day and night Tests," the source said.
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He said Pakistan was the first to start experimenting with the idea of having day/night first class matches. "We held two five-day finals of the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy first class event under lights and experimented successfully with the orange ball," he said.
"We even offered to have a day and night Test match against Sri Lanka in 2012/2013 in the United Arab Emirates but the Sri Lankan board rejected this proposal," he revealed.
"And after the ICC ruling we felt we had lost the initiative and are not planning any more experiments this season," he added.
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The source also said that this was the reason why Pakistan also didn't offer to play a day and night Test against England this winter in the UAE. "But now that a day and night Test is due to be held in Australia this year, we will see how it goes and then start having day and night first class matches and maybe even look at a day and night Test next year," he said.
The source said that the PCB was in favour of day and night Test matches as it felt the venues in UAE and in South Asia were ideal for this. "Certainly day and night Tests have the potential of increasing television viewership and ground revenues and spectators for the home board," he said.
