Day-night Ashes unfancied by Smith

Australia captain Steve Smith has welcomed the confirmation of a day-night Test against South Africa, but warned against overdosing on the format and called for the Ashes rivalry to be played exclusively as day matches.

Australia will meet the Proteas under lights in Adelaide in November in the third and final match of their Test series before facing Pakistan in a day-night Test at the Gabba in the opening match of their three-match series against Misbah-ul-Haq's men.

Quick Single: Proteas agree to day-night Test

There is no doubt day-night Test matches have proved an unbridled success with crowds and ratings figures, helping to revitalise the Test match format – some 123,000 fans poured into the Adelaide Oval over three evenings for the inaugural match against New Zealand last summer.

Day-night Test cricket is proliferating after the success of last summer's pink-ball clash with the Black Caps.

India are planning to host a day-night Test against New Zealand later this year and the Black Caps have revealed they intend to host England for a day-night Test in 2017-18 – the same summer as the next Ashes contest. Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Pakistan are all investigating options to host day-night matches.

Smith said the prospect of playing South Africa and Pakistan under lights this summer was "incredibly exciting".

But the Australian captain is not as certain an Ashes series should join the day-night revolution.

"The crowds and the viewers for the regular Ashes Test matches are pretty good," Smith said in Guyana today.

There's a bit to be talked about there, but it's still a little while away. We'll wait and see what happens with that one.

"My personal preference probably would be, yeah (to keep the Ashes to day-only Tests).

"I think it works pretty well with the red ball. It's been around for years and I think playing against England we always get the viewers and the crowds out.

"So I don't think there is any issue there. But I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens."

Cricket Australia Chief Executive Officer James Sutherland has previously said a day-night Ashes Test in the 2017-18 summer is a "distinct possibility".

"I think over the course of the next 12 months or so we'll see day-night Test cricket being played in other countries other than Australia," Sutherland said in April when announcing the 2016-17 summer schedule.

"I'm really confident that other member boards are very keen to do that.

"As we've talked about, there's going be more (day-night) Test cricket played into future and it will be a part of regular series.

"And it may well be that there is a day-night Test match in the Ashes series in 2017-18."

England and Wales Cricket Board chairman Colin Graves said day-night Test cricket in the UK was only a matter of time.

"You can't turn your back on it, it will happen," Graves told BBC Sport last month.

"We just have to decide when it is going to happen. We're doing a lot of work on it and we'd love to see day-night cricket."