CA CEO Confirms 5th Ashes Test Will Definitely Be A Day/Night Test Regardless Of The Venue

Cricket Australia (CA) CEO Nick Hockley confirmed on Thursday that the fifth Ashes Test will be a day-night affair. He added that with many states showing interest in hosting the fifth Test, an announcement on the same will come in the near future.

Hockley's comments come after the hosting rights of the fifth Test, scheduled to start from January 14, had to be taken away from Perth due to COVID-19 restrictions by Western Australia. As of now, Hobart, Melbourne, and Sydney are the frontrunners to host the fifth and final Ashes Test.

"The plan is, wherever it's played, to be a day-night Test with a pink ball. We've tried to be fair to everyone, we've given everyone an opportunity, we'll be taking in a range of considerations, and ultimately it's my job to put a recommendation to the board," said Hockley to SEN Test Cricket show.

"We've had lots of interest, I won't go into specifics because we're going through all the details now but as I said, we're working to come to a position as quickly as possible. Hopefully, there will be an announcement in the not-too-distant future," added Hockley.

Hockley expressed sadness over the decision on Perth not hosting the Ashes Test as Western Australia refused to relax its 14 days of quarantine rule. "We're extremely disappointed and I have to say I'm just gutted. Throughout this pandemic, we've done everything we possibly can to play the schedule as planned, and unfortunately for the cricket fans of WA we weren't able to play in Perth."

Hockley went on to term the criticism of CA for not hosting the fifth Test in Perth as 'entirely unfair'. "I think that's entirely unfair. I think we've worked really constructively with governments right around the country throughout the last 18 months, including the Western Australian government. So that's certainly not reflective of the conversations and the spirit of the conversations that I've been having with counterparts over in Western Australia."

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"Everyone's been extremely constructive. In the end, delivering a Test match is a massive endeavour, a massive logistical endeavour, a major event, five days, a huge number of production personnel and in the end, it became pretty clear in the last 10 days that it was logistically not feasible. I actually haven't seen those comments, but they're certainly not reflective of the discussions that I've been a part of."