With a rare occurrence of two-time stoppage in play due to the new LED lights at Adelaide Oval going out on the first day of the Pink Ball Test match of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, it meant that the 2023 installed LED system was questioned by the commentators. It has now emerged that the light failure twice was caused by Australian team’s request for an evening training session in the nets and the ground staff switched out the LED lights by mistake and the mistake occurring again within seconds causing a delay of more than 25 seconds first in the 18th over of the Australian innings followed by another 86 seconds.
“According to three sources with knowledge of events, the ground control room at the top of the Western Stand received a request for the net lights to be turned on for a throwdown session as Australia’s top order battled India. But when the computer-operated light settings were adjusted, the ground’s four light towers went out instead, stunning a crowd of 50,186,” The Age reported on Saturday morning.
According to the newspaper, the lights went out for the second time when the ground staff went out to turn the net lights. While the Indian team including captain Rohit Sharma and bowler Harshit Rana and Australian batsmen Nathan McSweeney and Marnus Labuchagne were also kept waiting for the first time, the second time occurrence meant that the players had an extended break of more than one minute. “They went out to turn on the net lights so the night watchman could have a couple of throw downs, and somehow either turned them to the wrong thing or something tripped. It was about trying to get the net lights on,” a source told The Age.
With some outrage over the floodlights issue in Adelaide, state labour MP Tom Koutsantonis posted on social media last night clarifying about the issue. “Whatever caused the light towers at Adelaide Oval to turn off was not related to a lack of power supply from the Grid,” the labour MP posted on his social media accounts.
It also led to commentators taking a dig at the fiasco. “Oh hello. They’ve run out of electricity in Adelaide. Pretty hot today. Plenty of air conditioners on.” Waugh said while commentating on Fox Cricket. Indian commentator Harsha Bhogle too joined Waugh over the issue and shared his thoughts during the two stoppage breaks as lights went out. “Someone’s fallen asleep, so we have to wait. It’s a first for me, a Test match being stopped because the lights are gone. Is anyone there?”,” said Bhogle on air. Waugh was quick to reply to the Indian commentator. “I don’t think I’ve seen this in Australia.” said Waugh.
Australian pacer Mitchell Starc, who had taken six wickets earlier in the day, also voiced his thoughts on the issue. “It was quite unusual for it to go out twice in a short space of time.” Starc had said post the day’s play.
The new LED lights at the stadium were put at a cost of more than five million dollars by Cricket Australia in December last year. The stadium earlier had retractable lights in 1990’s before they were replaced by floodlights in 2000 and later upgraded in 2014. “We had a brief internal switching issue that was quickly identified and rectified,” Cricket Australia said in a statement.
