Kolkata: India are set to play their maiden Day-Night Test against Bangladesh at the historic Eden Gardens from Friday and BCCI President Sourav Ganguly is an excited man. The former Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) President has taken it on himself to ensure that everything is in place as the venue gets ready for D-Day.
Moments after inspecting the pitch, Ganguly spoke to the media and his excitement was clearly visible as he spoke about how it was after long that the first four days of a Test match had been sold out.
"The pitch looks good. I am very excited. When have you last seen a Test match where first four days' tickets have been sold out," he smiled.
Eden Gardens will witness a musical extravaganza in the presence of former cricketers, celebrities and politicians during the first day of the Test. "Sachin (Tendulkar), (Sunil) Gavaskar, Kapil (Dev), Rahul (Dravid), Anil (Kumble) everyone will be there. In tea time, there will be carts going around the stadium with former captains in them," Ganguly said.
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- I just hope this marks the beginning of where we get huge crowds coming into the stadium and test cricket gets its credit and obviously with the change in timings people can afford to finish their work and come into the game, watch it and enjoy it.
— Ravichandran Ashwin
- Picking the ball is challenging. If it is challenging for slips, it is for me as well as I stand beside them. The ball wobbles as our pacers bowl. Dew could be a factor but I have to accept the challenges. We are professionals. Condition wise, twilight time will be challenging, especially picking the ball. We have to adjust. The ball is new, it might help pacers. Pink ball can be challenging for the batters. We have more experience with the pink ball, but with twilight period coming into play and considering dew factor, we have to apply ourselves on the ground.
— Wriddhiman Saha
- We are excited to play rather than think about the negatives. Visibility is fine, but the only anecdotal conversation I have heard is around being a little bit hard to pick up from point and square-leg. It will be interesting to find out if slips, gully and umpire is picking it up well. They say there's a small halo effect. Pink ball plays normal at this time of the day, and in this light. I think the challenge will be when the Test is under lights. Sunset is quite early here — I think 4:30 pm. I think that'll be the time when we see the pink ball come into play. The twilight hour, dusk is when it seems to do a little bit more. My experience is only from watching on TV. It will be the period of the Test match when tactically things might do a few different things. The four fast bowlers are very excited. It is a nice thing. Bangla fast bowlers don't get to be excited a lot.
— Daniel Vettori
