IND vs BAN | Pleasant viewing experience a must for D/N Tests to flourish, says Harsha Bhogle
Harsha Bhogle mentioned the decline of supporters that visit the stadiums for Test matches and feels that viewing D/N Test matches has to be a pleasant experience for the viewers to make the pink-ball Test a hit in India. India will play the pink-ball Test against Bangladesh at the Eden Gardens.
India is all set to play its first-ever day and night Test versus Bangladesh at the Eden Gardens on November 22. This was always on the cards once Sourav Ganguly became the BCCi President as he was always in favour of exploring new things and had made pink-ball matches possible at the local level when he was the Chairman of the Cricket Association of Bengal.
Harsha Bhogle, in his video on Cribuzz, mentioned the advantages of D/N Tests from two aspects - the playing aspect and the marketing aspect. There have been 11 pink-ball matches that have been played so far and thus the statistics are not enough to recognize a particular trend in batting or bowling.
"5 of the 11 matches have been played in Australia and 11 times teams have been bowled out under the score of 150. The ball does a lot more under lights than it does on good batting wickets," analyzed Bhogle.
Bhogle further analyzed the reasons for the batting collapses. The pink ball swings a lot and causes more trouble because of more grass that is left on the field. This is done to prevent the ball from being dirty and negate the Dew effect.
"Pink ball cannot afford to become black thus they have extra lacquer and have a more pronounced seam. The ball doesn't get roughed up because of more grass that is left on the wicket and more grassy outfields," he said.
On the other hand, there were instances of the pink-ball assisting the spinners too as Yasir Shah had created havoc with his spell in the D/N Test match against West Indies in Dubai. So Bhogle believes that it is not entirely certain to say whether the pink-ball favours fast bowling or spin bowling. Maybe it all comes down to the conditions. Bhogle believes that the Eden Gardens will have a lot of dew as we are heading into winter. The wet ball will really prove difficult for the bowlers to bowl with and this can cause an impact on the game.
From the marketing point of view, Bhogle believes that D/N cricket will be played at a time when people will be back from work and will be able to visit the stadiums and watch the match. He believes that audiences are such an important part of the game. The way Kohli has urged the crowds to get behind the team during the home Tests says a lot about the crowd playing a part as a 12th man.
Thus it is important to attract people. One more important factor is that the matches need to be played at the Test centres at which are located in the centre of the city and are easily accessible, something which Kohli had stressed on.
"You must play when people have time to watch. If you play when people work and do not have the time to watch, test match audeience will be plumetting everywhere," Bhogle said.
"If people have to come to watch a cricket match then we have to throw a red carpet literally. We have to make watching cricket at ground as pleasant as possible. If you can make it a pleasant viewing experience, then I think we have a future. It is almost like a march into the unknown," he concluded
