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 a 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.
The day-night Test is traditionally played by a pink ball. While India always has the reservation to play the 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 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 a domestic level a 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 for pink-ball cricket.
