Sourav Ganguly, former India skipper and current President of Cricket Association of Bengal, has once again thrown his weight in favour of Day/Night Test cricket as he has said it’s the only way of going forward to attract the audience in India.
In the ongoing Test series against England, there has been a scarcity of people in the stands and Mumbai Test was the only game where we saw much crowd, even on a Monday morning, the first working day of the week, “Adopting Day-Night Tests is common sense and it has to come to India. The biggest hindrance of 5-day cricket is that people have to work, even someone like me who has played so much cricket and who is so passionate about the game has to work during the day and I miss a lot of cricket so it is quite natural for somebody else,” he said.
Ganguly further cited the example of the ongoing Test match between Australia and Pakistan, which has been a houseful on all three days till now.
“66,000 people came to Australia vs Pakistan Test match, imagine when India goes to Australia, there may be an India vs Australia Brisbane Test or an MCG Test under lights and it is going to be packed. So that is the way forward for Test cricket,” he added.
“When Australia comes there will be a Test match in Ranchi and I think there will be a lot of people watching, New Zealand played against India at Eden Gardens and there were 35 to 40,000 people watching the Test match on a weekend and once again I say a Saturday-Sunday which means people are off work and people can come to cricket. But once again I’d say that the way forward is Day-Night Test cricket in India.”
Sourav Ganguly-headed Cricket Association fo Bengal was the first board in the country to host a pink ball game. The final of the domestic league of Bengal was played with a pink ball at the Eden Gardens. In fact, the game was also televised. The CAB was doing all this in a bid to host the pink ball Test against New Zealand, which in the end did not happen after both the BCCI and the NZ board did not agree to play the pink ball game.
All this shows Sourav Ganguly is very much eager and wants the Indian team to adopt something new and play a pink ball game. Also, in any case, if the BCCI agrees to play the pink ball game, Ganguly would also want the Eden Gardens to host the game.