South Africa fast bowler Dale Steyn says he would relish the challenge of playing the day-night test
South Africa may be reluctant to play the day-night test with the pink ball against Australia in Adelaide, but their premier fast bowler Dale Steyn has revealed he would relish the challenge. Australia and South Africa are scheduled to play a day-night test match starting 24 November but that might not happen due to concerns over the visibility of the pink ball under lights.
Despite his team and cricket board's reluctance to play a day-night test match, Steyn is keen to experience it for himself. "I don't want to go through my whole career without playing a day-night game. How cool are they? I thought it looked awesome when New Zealand and Australia played one. It looked entertaining, there was a big crowd. The ball is pink — it's something different, you want to test your skills with that whole thing and it's very exciting", Steyn was quoted as saying by cricketaustralia.
The inaugural pink ball test match between Australia and New Zealand in 2015 was an enormous success, drawing record crowds and ratings, prompting Cricket Australia to schedule two pink ball test matches for the summer. While Pakistan have not made any objections to their day-night clash, South Africa are yet to comment on the matter.
"The difficult part of it comes in if it's one all and we go into a decider and we play a test match we've never really played before, we've never used a pink ball before. That could be a little bit of an issue for the guys, Australia having played one before and having played a few first-class games, would have the upper hand on us in that sense. We are not moaning about it, it would just not be a level playing field."
Australia host South Africa in a three-match test series starting November, with Cricket Australia announcing the Men's 2016-17 International schedule. The final match is intended to be a day-night one.
Schedule for Commonwealth Bank Test Series 2016, Australia vs South Africa
First Test: November 3-7, WACA Ground, Perth
Second Test: November 12-16, Blundstone Arena, Hobart
Third Test: November 24-28, Adelaide Oval, Adelaide
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