CoA directs BCCI to schedule India's maiden day-night Test soon

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has always shown its reluctance to play Test match under lights since its invention. The concept of day-night contests in whites came up only to make the game of cricket more popular following the less interest shown by the fans. But Virat Kohli and his men are yet to make their debut in the unique format. However, now the head of the Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA) Vinod Rai has now pulled up BCCI to plan the day-night Test in October this year.

Almost all the top Test-playing nations apart from India have featured in the Test match under lights and have returned with the positive feedback with a lot of people coming into the Stadiums to watch the final session. The match is played with the Pink ball which moves a lot under lights and makes the contest fascinating. Australia has scheduled at least one day-night Test match in their last couple of home season.

Rai’s stinging mail to BCCI

According to Times of India, in a series of emails, BCCI’s acting secretary Amitabh Choudhary had asked the opinion of the head coach of Team India regarding the same during the last home season. Shastri had agreed for the match “to be tried out as an experiment with a game starting at 12 PM.” Also, Choudhary had written a mail addressing to the top officials of the board which read, “all seem to be in sync provided the advice of only the last session being played under lights is ensured.”

However, Vinod Rai reacted a bit harshly over the matter and wrote in a stinging mail to Choudhary, “I’m a bit amazed at the way we seem to be taking policy decisions. Please confirm firstly, that day-night Tests have never been played before. Secondly, you seem to have discussed with all the stakeholders, who in your scheme of things constitute four persons sitting in the (BCCI) cricket centre – a very misplaced viewpoint.”

“Thirdly, even if it be cricket of which all of you certainly have greater knowledge than me, (I’m excluding Diana (Edulji, former India women’s team skipper), who has greater knowledge than all of you! I represent the viewing population. They are your greatest stakeholder. This issue is placed on hold. It does not go out of cricket centre,” the mail read.

However, following the CoA pull up of BCCI, there is a possibility that the discussions might go ahead to schedule India’s first ever day-night Test match against Windies in October which are the only home games for them this year.

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