India will host a day-night Test in the upcoming two-Test series against Bangladesh. India will thus host their first ever pink-ball Test at Eden Gardens, Kolkata from 22 November.
BCCI president Sourav Ganguly, who has been an ardent supporter of day-night Tests, made his intentions clear when he said Virat Kohli was agreeable to India playing day-night Tests.
The announcement of the first ever day-night Test in India comes after BCCI’s continued resistance to the newest experiment in world cricket. The cricket body had argued that India had not played enough first-class cricket under the lights and it would risk losing World Test Championship points.
Bangladesh, like India, haven’t played a pink-ball Test match since the concept saw the light of the day in November 2015. Green-lighting the game, Bangladesh head coach Russell Domingo said his players, all of whom were consulted, were excited at the prospect of playing the top-ranked team in such a novel game at an iconic venue. Bangladesh begin their India tour with the three T20Is, starting on 3 November.
Interestingly, BCCI was keen 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. India had experimented with pink-ball cricket in Duleep Trophy between 2016 and 2018 before the first-class tournament returned to red-ball format for the 2019 season.