Indian head coach doesn’t have a clear-cut thought on Day-nights Tests, says BCCI Official

Shastri, in his recent meeting with Committee of Administrators, conveyed that the team requires time to prepare for the Tests under light but they were not against the concept if ICC wants to pursue it. However, the coach also stated that as the World Cup is just over a year ahead, the team would at least require 12-18 months to prepare for the Tests under lights. 

After Shastri’s sudden change of decision, a senior BCCI official revealed that three months ago, the head coach had given a nod to play a Day-night Test match on the basis of experimentation and agreed that getting crowds to the game was important, but shockingly during meeting with the COA, told that the team needs to prepare for 12 to 18 months to play any day-night Test.

“It is curious to see that the Indian coach was ready to experiment with day-night cricket with the pink ball in India about three months back but now the same decision-making process makes him say that 12 to 18 months of practice would be required for the team. There is no indication as to what the practice would be and what would be the logistics and time management surrounding that. One has to play pink – ball cricket to practice,” the official explained as quoted by Cricketnext.

Three months ago, Shastri, in his letter to acting secretary Amitabh Chaudhary in regards to playing day-night Test matches, had written, “As far as day-night cricket goes it can be tried out as an experiment with a game starting at 12 and where the dew will play. Again, against a team like the West Indies, it has to be played in a Tier-II city without a doubt. To get in the crowds, it doesn't matter if it's a day game or day-night game. What's important is a Tier-II city.”

The COA. however, in its letter to BCCI, have written that they have already informed the technical committee about team’s hesitancy to play pink-ball cricket when they met Shastri on April 12. Interestingly, the technical committee of the BCCI has no clue of any such point being discussed regarding day-night Tests.