The first of many questions that executives at Edgbaston had to ask as they commenced preparations for England’s first ever day-night Test was: what do you call the breaks? Standard, daytime Tests have their lunch break at, well, lunchtime, and their tea break at, give or take, tea time. A 2pm start distorts the timetable and, while 4pm can be referred to in many ways, if you are calling it lunchtime something has gone badly wrong with your day.
In Adelaide, where Australia played day-night Test matches against New Zealand in 2015 and South Africa the following year, and where England will appear in another this December, the breaks were switched, with the first becoming shorter and known as tea, and the second – coming, as it does, at approximately dinnertime – stretching longer and renamed dinner.
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