Cricket Australia is pushing plans for day-night test matches, believing it may be the only way to protect the traditional form of the game from being swamped by the popularity of Twenty20 cricket.CA chief executive James Sutherland said Thursday that test cricket had become "in a commercial sense less appealing" than other forms of the game because its five-day duration and daytime schedule posed difficulties for broadcasters and sponsors.Sutherland accepted purists might object, but Cricket Australia was pressing ahead with the idea of staging day-night test matches."It just might be the only one that test cricket stays alive," Sutherland said."None of us want the game to go down that (extinction) path and we've got a duty to try to ensure that test cricket remains attractive and relevant in today's society."While test crowds dwindle, limited overs and Twenty20 matches which are often played at night in television's prime time attracted a larger audience and offered greater commercial rewards.Sutherland said CA was working with Australian researchers to develop a new ball which was dew-proof and highly visible for night games while retaining the traditional properties of test-match balls whose wear pattern influences games."We've got to be careful that we don't live in the past where test cricket was the only game and the ultimate game, because it's certainly not the only game and it might not always be the ultimate game," Sutherland said."We want it to be, I certainly want it to be, but above everything, I don't want it to die."
