‘Doesn’t matter if it’s Gabba or Perth’: India ready for day-night Test in Australia - Virat Kohli
Positive discussions between the Indian cricket board (BCCI) and Cricket Australia (CA) on Monday on pink-ball matches could open a new chapter for Test cricket involving India in the Trans-Tasman region.
India captain Virat Kohli has accepted the challenge thrown at him by Australia captain Tim Paine, declaring that his team is ready to play a day-night Test in the next tour of Australia. Australia have an intimidating record in day-night Tests, winning seven out of seven they have played so far. The pink ball swings a lot more and it suits their pace strength. India’s only tryst with day-night Test was in November last year, when they played Bangladesh at Eden Gardens. Kohli got a century and India won by an innings and 46 runs.
“We played the day-night Test here. We were pretty happy with how it went. 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,” said Kohli, ahead of the one-day series against Australia, starting Tuesday.
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Cricket Australia (CA) would be happy to hear this. Before India’s last tour in 2018-19, the CA had tried hard to negotiate for a D/N Test but the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) didn’t relent. India’s argument was their players’ lack of experience with the pink ball. CA wanted to start the series with the pink ball Test at Adelaide. Tactically, it didn’t favour India either. It was their best chance to win a series Down Under and given Australia’s record at home in D/N Tests, India were better off without it. India went on to win the Adelaide Test before recording their first ever Test series win in Australia.
To be fair to Australia though, they had fielded a depleted side with Steve Smith and David Warner serving bans over their roles in the ball tampering scandal during the 2018 Cape Town Test. Australia are back to full strength now and have regrouped brilliantly this summer, blanking Pakistan and New Zealand at home. And it sets them up nicely for India’s visit next summer. Talking about what to expect next, Kohli said: “India-Australia, it’s not a totally new thing that we’re going to experience (for) either side. The teams know each other so well, we played each other so much, and the competition has always been good. Having won last year, that gives us a lot more confidence going back.”
Even BCCI president Sourav Ganguly has said the real challenge for India will be in Australia. India have an outstanding pace attack with Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami, Ishant Sharma and Umesh Yadav, but Kohli admitted it will be a challenge for his bowlers to break through Australia’s batting order which has Smith, Warner and new run-machine Marnus Labuschagne. “This time around the series is going to be different, in terms of their batting challenging our bowlers. To be fair, last time around, the players were not that experienced. If you take out David (Warner) and Steve (Smith), Marnus (Labuschagne) came in but he played only one game. The way he’s shaped up in the last summer, it’s amazing—so much consistency it always good to watch at the international level—and the hunger and the passion, you can see in his game. It’ll be a challenge for us to break through that batting order but it’s a challenge we should look forward to.”
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India and Australia are at the top of the World Test Championship table and given their form and all-round strengths, are favourites to quality for the final at Lord’s in 2021. However, a full-fledged Test series Down Under will really whet the appetite of the cricket fans in both countries. “We should not look forward to easy games and going to Australia, you should not expect anything easy. So, as I said, we want to keep challenging ourselves as a team and we’re the top two sides in the table as well, in the world championship. I’m sure it’s going to be amazing for people to watch because the series will be right up there with any of the best series we’ve seen in the past five-six years. We’re pretty excited for it.”
The day-night Test may further encourage those backing the proposal to reduce Tests to four-day versions as a majority of the games under lights have been low scoring affairs that have not lasted beyond the fourth day. The India-Bangladesh Test was over in two-and-a-half days.
