SYDNEY: Frustrated Cricket Australia boss Todd Greenberg vowed Monday to take up “archaic” bad light rules with the sport’s governing body after a third of the opening day at the fifth Ashes Test was lost.
Play was halted 15 minutes before the scheduled tea break on Sunday in front of nearly 50,000 fans in the Sydney Cricket Ground due to fading light, gentle rain and lightning protocols.
There was no more action, with stumps called an hour before schedule at 5:00 pm, with the entire third session abandoned.
“There’s a lot of things that I get frustrated with in cricket but bad light’s one of them,” Greenberg told SEN radio. “Yesterday, maybe more so than ever with a full house and millions watching on TV.
“We’ve got to find a better way in cricket ... where we try not to come off the field when it’s bad light and show a greater willingness and intent to get back on.”
ICC rules dictate that play cannot resume if the on-field umpires agree the light conditions are “dangerous or unreasonable”.
They also state that it cannot start until at least 30 minutes after lightning strikes in the area, which perplexed fans in Sydney with play still suspended despite the skies beginning to brighten.
Greenberg said he had no immediate solution, but with light towers and cutting-edge technology believes there has to be a better way.
“What you can take from my comments is a desire to push at the global level of how we get better at these things because it felt like it wasn’t good enough,” he said. “I have talked about this a bit over the years, the nuance of cricket and some of the strange and archaic rules that sit within the sport.
“I’m sure there’s conversations that can be had about how we can be slightly more progressive.
“I sound like a broken record, but we’re in the entertainment business, and so I can’t think of another business that continues to walk off in front of its fans.”
Former England captain Michael Vaughan also urged a change in “mindset” among match officials and administrators.
“In T20 cricket you play in this. Test cricket is the one format that we do everything we possibly can to get off the pitch,” he told the BBC. “The other two formats we do everything we possibly can to get on the pitch. I just don’t understand why we don’t have that same mindset in Test match cricket.”
Published in Dawn, January 6th, 2026
