DHAKA, Oct 27, 2019 (BSS) – The Bangladesh Cricket (BCB) got a proposal to
play a day-night Test from their Indian counterpart BCCI, whose newly elected
president Sourav Ganguly is very keen to make Kolkata Test, starting on
November 22, a day-night affair.
Neither India, nor Bangladesh played day-night Test so far after the
first-ever day-night Test match was played between Australia and New Zealand
at the Adelaide Oval in November 2015.
Day-night Test is traditionally played by pink ball. While India always
have the reservation to play pink ball Test, Bangladesh appeared not to like
the idea.
Even Bangladesh turned down a proposal to play a day-night Test when they
visited New Zealand earlier this year.
This time Bangladesh is looking forward in an apprehensive mood.
“We have got the proposal just two or three days ago but we didn’t discuss
about it yet,” BCB Cricket Operations Chairman Akram Khan told the BSS today.
“After discussing the matter with the team management and the players we’ll
give our decision to India.”
In a bid to get them used to with the day-night Test, Bangladesh played
some longer version matches at domestic level few years ago. But as the
players complained about the quality of the pink ball, the idea of playing
day-night Test got shelved.
BCCI President Sourav Ganguly has been vocal about India playing day-night
Tests to pull more spectators to the stands. On Thursday, Ganguly met Kohli
and India’s limited-overs vice-captain Rohit Sharma in Mumbai during the
selection meeting for the Bangladesh series and it is believed that he spoke
to them about the day-night Tests.
Indian newspapers, however, reported that the Indian team is lukewarm to
Ganguly’s day-night Test proposal, considering that they don’t have any
preparation on pink ball cricket.