DHAKA: Australia and New Zealand appear almost certain to play the first day-night Test with a pink ball next year, after discussions progressed between the two countries last week. 

Adelaide and Hobart are the two possible venues for the inaugural match, which is likely to take place in November 2015, despite some concerns arising from players after pink-ball trials in the Sheffield Shield last summer.

A further round of day-night Shield games will be played this season and New Zealand are also set to undertake their own trials, though not in first-class cricket, as the inexorable push towards a day-night Test continues. Although some Shield players had no problems with the pink ball, others reported trouble seeing the ball or its seam, and there were concerns about how quickly it softened and lost its swing, reports espncricinfo.com

All three matches lasted into the fourth day and Cricket Australia's chief executive James Sutherland said the most encouraging aspect of the day-night trials was that the scores were consistent with the rest of the Shield season. However, he conceded that a pink ball was unlikely ever to behave exactly like a red ball and that "everyone is going to need to be accepting" of that.

"What we learnt from that last year is that there are no really obvious reasons why we shouldn't be continuing to progress with our intent around day-night Test match," Sutherland said. "We're certainly very excited about the concept and we're serious about really properly pushing ahead now.

"The pink ball, just like the white ball, doesn't behave exactly the same as the red ball. But ... the ball is the same for both teams. What we were pleased about was that in looking at the Shield results from this round that we played, the statistics in terms of runs and wickets were very much on par with average for the whole Shield season last year. There weren't any rogue behaviours.

BDST: 1247 HRS, JUN 30, 2014