We hope that India play two Pink-ball test matches down under, says Earl Eddings
Cricket Australia (CA) chairman Earl Eddings has revealed that he would like Australia and India to play five Test matches when the two teams meet Down Under late next year. With India having played their first-ever day-night Test, Eddings hopes to have more than one pink-ball Test in the series.
India was the last of the major Test-playing nations to agree to play a day-night Test. And as it turned out, they took their neighbours Bangladesh apart in little over two days at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata last month. The Men in Blue have a tour to New Zealand in February, before their next Test series coming away to Australia late next year. And CA, who couldn’t convince India to play a pink Test last time around, is hoping that the decision will be different when the two boards meet on the sidelines of a three-match ODI series in January next year.
“Now they’ve got through that it might give them the right build-up to it over here. I’ve got no doubt they’ll consider playing one and maybe even more day-night Test matches. But that’s down the track to when we catch up with them in January. Ideally, we want to be playing five Tests against India, hopefully, in the future, we can do that as well,” Eddings told ESPNCricinfo.
The board’s Chief Executive Kevin Roberts also spoke about having more than one Day/Night Tests during the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.“…in my heart I’d say four from four, in my head we’d love to play one of the four as a day-night Test,” Roberts told ABC Radio.
Eddings, meanwhile, was pleased with BCCI’s new president Sourav Ganguly, who managed to convince Bangladesh for a Day/Night game within a week of taking over on October 23.
“The fact India are playing day-night Test cricket is a great thing. It shows that he cares about the game. I want to stress we’ve got a very strong relationship with India, there’s a lot of mutual respect there. While we have our differences because we’ve got different needs, the relationship is very strong,” Eddings concluded.