Reports | India to play Day/Night Test against England at refurbished Motera Stadium in Ahmedabad

Reports | India to play Day/Night Test against England at refurbished Motera Stadium in Ahmedabad

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India is set to play a day-night Test in the refurbished Sardar Patel Stadium in Motera during England’s five-match Test series in January-February 2021. The decision was taken by the BCCI’s Apex Council meeting where BCCI president Sourav Ganguly and secretary Jay Shah were present.

At the meeting, BCCI contemplated hosting a day-night Test in Motera which last hosted an ODI against Sri Lanka and has not entertained any international cricket since November 2014. The Gujarat Cricket Association wanted to renovate the facility completely by including relaying pitches as well as the outfield. The ground is on the verge of creating history by becoming the biggest cricket ground in the world with a capacity of 110,000.

At the meeting, it was also discussed that India will feature in a day-night Test during their 2020-21 tour of Australia, which consists of four Test matches between December and January. Talking about the day-night fixture in Australia, president Ganguly met CA chairman Earl Eddings on the sidelines of the India-Australia ODI series to chalk out a plan for the day-night Test and identify the ground. Originally, CA wanted to host two pink-ball Tests but the BCCI gave the green signal for just one. It is being understood that either Brisbane or Adelaide will be the venue for the pink ball Test.

"Two out of four would be a bit too much with the pink ball," said Ganguly as quoted by Cricinfo.

Ever since Ganguly took charge of the BCCI last October, he has continually pushed the envelope of Day-Night Test. India played their maiden pink ball Test against Bangladesh at Eden Gardens in November 2019. The BCCI president has also spoken to Virat Kohli and the Indian Captain is happy to play day-night Tests in Australia as long as the players were given enough time and notice to prepare.

"We played the day-night Test [against Bangladesh] here, we were pretty happy with how it went,  it's become a very exciting feature of any Test series and we're open to playing day-night Tests. We're ready and up for the challenge - whether it's Gabba, Perth... it doesn't matter to us, we have the skill sets as a team now to compete against anyone in the world, anywhere, in any format of the game, whether it's white ball, red ball or pink ball, we're ready to play anything,” Kohli had said, as quoted by EspnCricinfo.

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