Joe Root: England must be ready for the unexpected in first day-night Test match

It should be fun. What would otherwise have been a one-sided Test series against West Indies will be a much more open one when the first day-night Test begins in England at 2pm. For any team caught batting at twilight against a new pink ball under Edgbaston’s floodlights could be dismissed cheaply.

West Indies have lost their last five Test series in England. Their last victory in a Test match in this country was 17 years ago. Their current batting line-up contains nobody as old as 30 with all the experience to go with it. All of which suggests that if England’s 988th Test match was a normal diurnal game, England would be overwhelming favourites. But it isn’t, so they aren’t.

“Obviously there are slightly different challenges and it might throw up a different rhythm to the game,” England’s captain Joe Root said on the eve of a new era in Test cricket. “But I think it’s important not to have too many theories and we react to what’s thrown up in front of us and make sure that if things do start to happen slightly differently to normal we respond to that very quickly, and make sure we win those sessions.

“It looks like there are going to be some fantastic crowds,” Root added. “I think it’s been sold out for the first three days, so hopefully it’s a huge success and it can widen the audience for Test cricket.” And it is a laudable hope on Root’s part that day-night Test cricket will take off, if not a realistic one in England, for reasons that can be summed up in one word: hypothermia.

Overseas however, in the southern hemisphere and Asia, this potential is rightly being explored - and England are already committed. Their second day-night Test will be in December in Adelaide, which is the perfect venue as office-workers can stroll a few hundred yards from the CBD across a foot-bridge and into the Adelaide Oval, there to quaff and carouse the evening away. England’s third is due to be in Auckland in late March.

Root’s own experience of batting against the new Dukes pink ball in a competitive match is confined to a score of 12 not out against Surrey in June. So he sought the advice of Faf du Plessis after England had beaten South Africa 3-1 in the last Test series, as South Africa have played in one of the two day-night Tests in Adelaide (there has also been one in Brisbane, another in Dubai); and du Plessis sprung a surprise by declaring with nine wickets down, when South Africa’s total was only 259, in order to bowl before the end of the first day, or night.

“I managed to chat with Faf after the game and he gave me a few views - not really much,” Root said. “He  was saying he declared when he did trying to see if he could get early wickets, and it swung a little bit early on. But it’s very different in terms of the humidity and the balls that they used, so whether’s there a crossover I’m not sure.”

A lot depends on who you to talk to. Batsmen seem to think the pink ball swings more than a boomerang let alone a red ball. Bowlers seem to think it does not swing or reverse-swing at all and gives batsmen the keys to paradise. Given only four day-night Tests to date, the sample is too limited for generalisations but it will be fun to see differences evolve, provided it is not through chattering teeth.

If the novelty of a pink ball was a unique selling point for this Test, so was the recall of the Birmingham-born Chris Woakes to England’s squad - but there was never any real intention of playing him, given that he has had one Warwickshire 1st XI game since pulling an intercostal muscle at the start of the Champions Trophy. As Root admitted: “With Chris we feel he hasn’t quite had the game-time under his belt and we don’t want to rush him back after such a serious injury.”

Mason Crane is only along for the ride, to give the 20 year-old wrist-spinner a feel for Test cricket. “We have to see how things turn out and what the surfaces are,” Root said about the prospects of Crane playing later in this series. Mark Stoneman is certain to start though, in place of Keaton Jennings, as Alastair Cook’s 12th partner since Andrew Strauss.

West Indies have at least had three first-class games - one a day-nighter - to warm up, but the runs they have scored were against county second eleven attacks, including a Derbyshire 16 year-old pace bowler. They have also played a day-night Test, the one in Dubai, when Devendra Bishoo ran through Pakistan under floodlights by taking eight wickets in an innings.

The tourists’ last place today will go to either Bishoo or Alzarri Joseph, as a fourth pace bowler. Jason Holder, the West Indies captain, said of Jospeh, aged 20: “He's obviously shown progress from under-19 cricket and has made a quick transition into senior cricket. He gets it through at a really good clip and he does a bit with the ball as well.”

A really good clip. That could be the rate at which this Test match unfolds if conditions are cloudy and the batsmen’s fears about the pink ball prove well-founded.

Probable teams

England: A Cook, M Stoneman, T Westley, J Root (capt), D Malan, B Stokes, J Bairstow (wkt), M Ali, T Roland-Jones, S Broad and J Anderson.

West Indies: K Brathwaite, K Powell, S Hope, K Hope, R Chase, J Blackwood, S Dowrich (wkt), J Holder (capt), K Roach, S Gabriel and A Joseph.