CHENNAI : A clear picture of whether Eden Gardens will host India’s first ever day/night Test — between India and Bangladesh from November 22 — will emerge after Diwali. Since taking over as president of the BCCI, Sourav Ganguly has made his intention clear about hosting a pink ball Test as he sees it as a way to draw crowds to the longest format. All three Tests of the recent Freedom Trophy against South Africa were played before sparsely-crowded stands.
Ganguly broke the idea to captain Virat Kohli and his limited-over deputy Rohit Sharma during the selection committee meeting on Thursday, but nothing concrete has emerged so far. It is reliably learnt that even as Ganguly sounded out Kohli on converting the second Test against Bangladesh into a day/night affair, the captain has sought time to discuss this with the rest of the team before taking a decision.
Sources in the Indian team management indicated that a decision will be arrived at only after a thorough consideration. For the record, among the squad selected for the two-match series, which comes under the ICC World Test Championship, only Mayank Agarwal, Cheteshwar Pujara and Kuldeep Yadav have experience of playing pink ball cricket. That happened when Duleep Trophy was played in a day/night format for the first time in 2016-17.
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Interestingly, Ganguly was chairman of the BCCI’s technical committee back then. The two subsequent Duleep Trophy editions were played under lights but didn’t feature any of the Test regulars. This season, the tournament went back to the old format. It is one of the reasons the Indian team management is pondering whether to play a day/night Test without any preparation. Even though Bangladesh is ninth in the ICC Test rankings, India don’t want to risk losing 60 points that will consolidate their position at the top of Test Championship table.
“The idea can definitely be given a thought. But if we are talking about the Kolkata Test, there is very little time. It won’t be an ideal scenario to expose the players to the pink ball without any game time,” sources tracking the development told this newspaper.
Ever since Australia and New Zealand featured in the first day/night Test in November 2015, there have been 11 such Tests. India and Bangladesh are the only teams yet to feature in one, other than new entrants Afghanistan and Ireland. India’s reluctance isn’t much of a surprise, considering that they believe it will neutralise the spinners since the pink ball tends to give pacers an edge. Moreover, for the seam of a pink ball to remain prominent for 80 overs, the outfield has to be lush. In Indian conditions the seam tends to go soft soon. Also, most of the day/night matches have been played on pitches with 5mm grass, which offer significant advantage to seamers under lights.
There is an issue with the ball itself. In India, SG balls are used for Tests. The pink one for Duleep games were made by Kookaburra. While the BCCI can use Kookaburra as an alternative, choosing SG would mean risking something which is untested in these conditions.While there were talks of a practice game, it is ruled out because there are only three days between the third and final T20I in Nagpur and the first Test in Indore which begins on November 14. Meanwhile, a decision to convert a Test into a day/night fixture needs the BCCI Apex Council’s nod. It will be put forth to the Council only if the team agrees.