Championship pink-ball cricket returns - Northants v Glos
15 June 2018
Floodlit pink-ball cricket returns to the Specsavers County Championship next week, with nine matches that will again see each of the 18 counties playing a day-night fixture in 2018.
Gloucestershire head to Northampton to face Northamptonshire on Wednesday 20 June in the first of nine Floodlit pink ball matches.
Northants will be hosting a day-night Championship match for the second consecutive year, and Northants have taken the option of bringing forward the start of play to 1:30pm – meaning a scheduled close of 8:30pm.
Pink Dukes balls will again be used for the Division Two fixtures that are day/night fixtures.
Alan Fordham, the ECB’s Head of Cricket Operations, explained: “The view of the ECB Cricket Committee when the first round of day-night matches was reviewed last autumn was that as pink-ball cricket looks likely to continue at international level, it is important for us to continue to provide competitive experience of those different playing conditions for county players.
“The spread of matches across a handful of rounds provides us with the opportunity to assess different conditions at different stages of the summer. We weren’t blessed with great weather for the pink-ball round in 2017, so hopefully with matches in June, July and August, we might even get some warm summer evenings for Championship cricket at some stage this year.”
Day-Night Specsavers County Championship matches
June 20-23: Hampshire v Yorkshire, Northamptonshire v Gloucestershire
June 25-28: Derbyshire v Leicestershire, Durham v Warwickshire, Essex v Somerset, Kent v Middlesex, Nottinghamshire v Worcestershire.
July 22-25: Sussex v Glamorgan
August 19-22: Surrey v Lancashire
