BCCI have confirmed that India are set to play a day-night Test against Australia during their tour of Australia later this year. The two teams will lock horns in a four-match Test series between December and January.
In another significant move, the BCCI has also dropped a hint that Ahmedabad is to be the likely venue to host a day-night Test during the five-match series against England which will be played next year.
After the appointment of Sourav Ganguly as the BCCI president, India played their first day-night Test against Bangladesh last year, where they clinched a comfortable victory against the visitors.
After the end of the recently concluded ODI series between India and Australia, Virat Kohli confessed that they are ready to play a day-night Test anywhere in Australia.
“We’re ready and up for the challenge – whether it’s Gabba, Perth… it doesn’t matter to us. It’s become a very exciting feature of any Test series and we’re open to playing day-night Tests.“
“It’s become a very exciting feature of any Test series and we’re open to playing day-night Tests. We’re ready and up for the challenge – whether it’s Gabba, Perth… it doesn’t matter to us, we have the skillsets as a team now to compete against anyone in the world, anywhere, in any format of the game, whether it’s white ball, red ball or pink ball, we’re ready to play anything,” he said.
Previously, India declined Australia’s offer to play a day-night Test in Adelaide in 2018-19, citing lack of experience.
With day-night match seen as a possible answer to the longer format of the game’s dwindling attendances, Australia had been hoping that India will agree to play one game at the Gabba this year.
BCCI also discussed the possible venues for England’s tour of India next year, which will be India’s last engagement in the inaugural cycle of the World Test Championship. Ahmedabad has got the upper hand despite it has not hosted international cricket since November 2014, when India played Sri Lanka in an ODI.
The new-look stadium will become the biggest cricket ground in the world with a capacity of 110,000.
