Former Cricketer-turned-politician Gautam Gambhir has praised the BCCI President Sourav Ganguly for making India’s historic day-night Test a grand success. India won the pink-ball affair by an innings and 46 runs against Bangladesh, a game that lasted a little over two days as India completed a 2-0 whitewash at home. More than 42,000 fans turned up to watch the match.
In the wake of pink ball success in India, Gambhir wants that the Ranji Trophy final also to be played with a pink ball. He also went on to talk about the visibility of the pink ball under the lights.
Here’s what Gambhir gave his suggestion:
“I was at Eden Gardens and the Pink Ball Test was done really well by Sourav Ganguly and his team. There was just enough hype and drama around the game,” Gambhir wrote in his column for The Times of India.
“I was happy to see that fans’ interest was not neglected. I’d now request Dada to have a Ranji Trophy final with a pink ball.”
Gambhir also believes that India skipper Virat Kohli should accept Australian counterpart Tim Paine’s challenge to play a day-night Test during their upcoming series. The 2018-19 tour was supposed to feature a pink-ball Test in Adelaide but India refused the offer to play under floodlights.
“I like the way Australia skipper Tim Paine has ‘flighted’ one for India captain Virat Kohli, challenging him to play a day-night fixture on the next tour Down Under. Knowing Virat he is not the one to back out,” said Gambhir.
He concluded by saying, “And why should he? A day-night Test match between India and Australia at Brisbane or the MCG will be quite a spectacle. And you can trust Aussies to make it a truly memorable game by some smart marketing. I haven’t seen Virat’s response for Paine but if I was him I would have straight away told him to make some late-night babysitting arrangements as we were ready!”
