Do England unnecessarily obsess over Day-Night Tests?

[Varun]

Twice now - in Ahmedabad and Adelaide - they have got their strategy completely wrong, thinking of D/N affairs as a game where the ball will swoop around corners and Anderson will pick up 7-fers.

In Ahmedabad, Axar Patel spun it square like on any other Indian pitch - day or night, taking 6 in the first innings and 5 in the second. Only 1 English wicket was taken by a seamer - Ishant Sharma - who took out opening batsman Sibley in the very first over of the game before the sun had even thought of setting. In the meantime, England nonsensically packed their team with 4 seamers (in India!) who took a single wicket among them in the entire game.

Likewise today in Adelaide. They spoke about this particular test for weeks and rested Broad and Anderson in anticipation. Come the time, nobody passed them the memo that even in conditions favourable more to seam than spin (Australia), D/N tests have been found out and doesn't really faze batsmen anymore if they at all did.

Now they're 2-0 down and their perceived lottery ticket hasn't worked. Nothing else other than a 4-0 or 5-0 whitewash awaits.

 

[Mamoon]

I think they have been reading Junaids’ posts on D/N Tests.

 

[Ab Fan]

What is the matter ultimately?

Whether Anderson and Broad are present or not, they have been mostly losing away so the idea that giving them favourable conditions may reap some benefit isn't a bad choice.

Now, yet if they lose, then they can't do much but to go to drawing board and fix everything from start.

 

[James]

The D/N thing is a bit of a MacGuffin for England. The fact is that in away conditions that aren’t against lower ranked teams like South Africa, Sri Lanka, West Indies and Bangladesh — I’m thinking about in India, Australia, New Zealand and Pakistan here — England’s Test team at the moment is just not going to be good enough to win Test matches. The one win against India in India this year was impressive, but potentially a bit of a fluke in the grand scheme of things. Even England’s reasonably reliable home record has been getting progressively worse this year.

 

[Robert]

Plenty of Australians thought England would be competitive at Adelaide too. The capitulation to second-string bowlers has shocked them.

Of course last time there we had a bloke named Cook who got 233.

 

[sweep_shot]

England are just terrible at Test format now. D/N Test or no D/N Test.

They don't seem to focus much on Test nowadays.

 

[Nikhil_cric]

Theres a myth that the pink kookaburra does a bit more than the red kookaburra. That is only true at certain times and whenever the is movement on offer, the Ausse attack will exploit it even better . So whatever perceived advantage they have is actually non existent.

England are just a very poor test side (red or pink) and they have only 1 world class batsman in root and a host of medium pace bowlers who are conditions dependent. Cant won too many test matches with that.

 

[jnaveen1980]

Their best day-night spinner played the test Remember Root took 5 for 8. All said and done Leach is an expensive option anywhere in Australia day or night. He is just not good enough. Australia is generally a burial ground for run-of-the-mill floaty finger spinners. Their batting is the main problem.You could pack your side with 7 bowlers you are still going to lose if you collapse 3 out of 4 times.

 

[Amjid Javed]

The one D/N that a did a bit in Aus was the 1st one vs NZ, they left to much grass on wicket so ball swung all over place. wicket was like that to compensate for pink ball falling apart on a rough surface early on otherwise. england seem to think that would happen again.

pakistan should host england for a pink ball test so we can spank them under lights ).