The Indian cricket team will be playing their first ever Day-Night Test match when they take on Bangladesh at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata from November 22. BCCI President Sourav Ganguly confirmed that the two teams will take part in the pink-ball Test after they received green signal from the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB).
The development ended days of speculation after Ganguly first proposed the idea to the Bangladesh Cricket Board, which faced resistance from its players and sat for multiple meetings to convince them.”It’s a good development. Test cricket needs this push. Me and my team were bent on it and thanks to Virat (Kohli) also, he agreed,” Ganguly said.
There are plans to invite India’s legendary Olympians like Abhinav Bindra, MC Mary Kom and PV Sindhu and felicitate them for their contribution to the country’s Olympic movement during the match. Just like Cricket Australia’s annual ‘Pink Test’ (players wear Pink caps) in association with the Jane McGrath Foundation to raise awareness about breast cancer, Ganguly wants the Eden Gardens’ Day-night Test to be an “annual affair”.
“Great opportunity and massive game in Eden Gardens against India, who also hasn’t played a D/N Test. It is new to both sides and it will probably bring the two teams together,” Bangladesh coach Russell Domingo said.
“Both teams not quite knowing what is going to happen, so it is a challenge we want to take. Some of our players were skeptical about it, but we are excited. We don’t know what brand of ball will be used, and we will probably have little time to prepare but we are excited by it,” he added.
Bangladesh begin their India tour with the three T20Is, starting on November 3, before heading to Indore to kick off their World Test Championship campaign from November 14. The second Test will start on November 22.
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