Test future is not pink ball cricket- Virat
Image : BCCI
||CF Correspondent ||
Indian skipper Virat Kohli believes that pink-ball cricket is not the only solution for Test cricket.
Bangladesh and India will lock horns in the historic pink-ball Test match at Eden Gardens on November 22.
Cricket organizers are trying to rebrand Test cricket in order to make it commercially viable they opted for day-night Test that is played with pink ball.
It is expected to gather more crowds in Test as they are likely to be entertained in a better way under the floodlights unlike watching the dwell between batsmen and bowlers with pink ball unlike the past when Test cricket was all about red-ball cricket.
India's decision to welcome the idea of a D/N Test under Ganguly is a departure from their previous skepticism of the concept. BCCI had been invited to play a pink-ball Test in Adelaide by Cricket Australia on their 2018-19 tour but had turned it down citing lack of practice.
Incidentally, the pink ball debuted in India at the Eden Gardens in 2016 during the CAB Super League final of 2016. Subsequently, BCCI turned the four-day Duleep Trophy competition into a pink-ball tournament at the start of 2016 with an eye on eventually playing a D/N Test match in India. Concerns about the lack of spin and reverse swing on offer with the pink ball remained as the tournament continued to be played with the pink SG ball until 2019, when the final originally slated to be played with the pink ball, went ahead with the red ball as a day game.
As India agreed to play pink-ball Test match many believe that it [pink-ball] is going to be the next big thing in cricket in the coming days.
However, Indian skipper Virat Kohli disagrees with it stating that no one can't purely make Test cricket based on just entertaining people.
‘’I don't think so [pink ball cricket is the future of Test cricket],’’ Kohli told reporters at the pre-match press conference at Eden.
‘’I don't think this can become[ the future of Test cricket] in my opinion, this should not become the only way Test cricket is played because then you're losing that nervousness in the first session in the morning,’’ Kohli told reporters at the
‘’Yes, you can bring excitement into Test cricket but you can't purely make Test cricket based on just entertaining people. You know the entertainment of Test cricket lies in the fact that a batsman is trying to survive a session and a bowler is trying to get a batsman out, and if people don't respond to that, too bad. Whoever wants to respond to that will come and watch Test cricket. If I don't like Test cricket, you can't push me to like Test cricket,’’ he said.
‘If someone gets an excitement or a boost from watching that battle between bat and ball and a great session of Test cricket, in my opinion, those are the people that should come and watch Test cricket. Because they understand what's going on. Yes it is great to create a buzz around Test cricket, the first three-four days here are sold out, which is amazing,’’ he said
‘’But I think Rahul Bhai mentioned this recently that if we have a Test calendar, where the series and the Tests are fixed then obviously it'll bring a lot more system and sync into people planning their calendars as well. It can't be random, saying you never know when a Test is going to arrive,’’ he said.
‘’If you have centers marked and you have Test calendars marked then obviously people will have an idea of how to plan to get to those Tests - people are not going to leave their work and come to a Test match if they don't know what's going on. They can plan in advance as you plan for anything in life. So I think this can be a one-off thing, It should not in my opinion become a regular thing,’’ he concluded.
