KINGSTON, Ja­maica – Pres­i­dent of the Ja­maica Crick­et As­so­ci­a­tion (JCA), Dr Dono­van Ben­nett, has ex­pressed cau­tious op­ti­mism that Sabi­na Park will host its first-ever day/night pink ball Test match this Ju­ly when Aus­tralia vis­its the Caribbean.

As pre­vi­ous­ly re­port­ed in the lo­cal me­dia, Crick­et Aus­tralia re­quest­ed that the third Test against the West In­dies be played as a day/night en­counter.

This move aligns with the pref­er­ence of Aus­tralian fans, who are ea­ger to ex­plore the is­land’s at­trac­tions dur­ing the day while en­joy­ing crick­et un­der the lights in the evening. How­ev­er, the pro­pos­al hinges on the com­ple­tion of nec­es­sary up­grades to the flood­lights at Sabi­na Park.

Dr Ben­nett con­firmed that the JCA has se­cured fund­ing from the Ja­maican gov­ern­ment to up­grade the light­ing sys­tem, with the new equip­ment set to be shipped from the UK. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, a state-of-the-art score­board from In­dia is ex­pect­ed to be in­stalled ahead of the Ju­ly dead­line.

Along­side the third Test, Sabi­na Park will al­so host two T20 match­es be­tween the West In­dies and Aus­tralia, both sched­uled as night games. While prepa­ra­tions are well un­der­way, Dr. Ben­nett em­pha­sized that fi­nal ap­proval from Crick­et West In­dies is still pend­ing.

“CWI has not yet signed off on it, how­ev­er, we have as­sured them that the light­ing up­grades will be com­plet­ed, as we have al­ready se­cured the funds from the gov­ern­ment and paid for the lights. The equip­ment is be­ing shipped from Eng­land, so we are con­fi­dent every­thing will be in place. I am al­most cer­tain it will be a pink ball Test, but we must await the fi­nal de­ci­sion from the Crick­et West In­dies be­fore con­firm­ing.”

The last time the Aus­tralians played a Test match at Sabi­na Park was June 2015, when the vis­i­tors de­feat­ed the West In­dies by 277 runs.

CM