The Eden Gardens is the second oldest Cricket ground in the world after the Lords in London. The Indian board has finally taken the plunge and new BCCI president Saurabh Ganguly has been able to get approval for a day-night test match at this stadium located at Kolkata. The match will be played against Bangladesh who seemed completely out of their depth in the last test match at Indore where they crashed to an innings defeat inside three days. The Indian captain has given the go-ahead to the proposal of the board for this day-night test match. Sports.ndtv has reported that the board is geared up to hold the first-ever day-night test in India.

The test will commence during the day and as night sets in the floodlights will be operated. The ball used will not be the normal red cherry but a pink colored ball, so as to be more visible in different lighting conditions. Eminent cricketer Sunil Gavaskar while giving the thumbs up to the proposal has opined that the records of test matches played with the pink color balls should be separate from normal test match records.

Day-night test

India had received the proposal to play day-night test matches about 2 years back but the board and cricketers were not too keen on it. With the advent of Saurabh Ganguly as the Board president and Virat Kohli as the Captain, the decks have been cleared to play the test match under lights by using a pink ball.

For both Bangladesh and India, the clash commencing on 22 November will be their first-ever foray in this type of test cricket. ìndia and Bangladesh have been playing One day and 20-20 matches under lights but they are a one-day affair. This test spread over 5 days will the acid test for cricketers. Indian Express has reported that the entire city is agog for the pink ball match and the city is decked in pink lights.

Bangladesh

India is already one up in the two test series and Bangladesh on their present form will be hard put to give a decent fight to the powerful Indian team. The Indian team under Kohli is rated as the best in the world and the recent tour by the South African team confirmed this as South Africa put in a poor show against India and lost all their matches.

One of the experiments of sending in Rohit Sharma to open the batting paid off and he hit two centuries and a double century. Bangladesh will be happy that Indian speed merchant Bumrah who had sunk West Indies with a 5 for 7 bowling spell in West Indies is not playing.

Eden Gardens is the oldest test paying ground in India. It also has the biggest stadium that can accommodate over 80,000 spectators. Bangladesh will be happy to play at this venue as Kolkata is the capital of the Indian state of Bengal which has a similar language and culture with Bangladesh. Bangladesh will also get a chance to play at the most beautiful ground in India.

History

The Eden Gardens has seen history made when Rohan Kanhai the West Indian hit 256 against India in 1959 and Sunil Gavaskar made a century in each innings of 107 and 182 not out against Alvin Kallicharans team in 1978.

Bangladesh is short on form and morale after their drubbing in the Indore test and they will have play above their potential to beat India or even salvage a draw. Both teams will be playing this test under lights with a pink ball for the first time and one will have to wait and see which team can adjust better,