India not to play D/N Test: BCCI tells CA

NEWDELHI:THE BCCI has officially informed Cricket Australia that India will not play any Day/night Test match on their tour Down Under at the end of this year.

While Cricket Australia were insistent on having a pink ball Test, which has been a convention for all touring teams for the past few years but the Indian board has made it clear that they will not deviate from the traditonal red-ball matches.

With Indian team management, headed by chief coach Ravi Shastri, intimating the Committee of Administrators (COA) that the team will take at least 18 months to prepare for the Day/ Night Test, acting secretary Choudhary was told to pass on the message to CA chief executive James Sutherland.

CA wanted the opening Test at Adelaide from December 6-10 to be a pink ball Test match.

“I am directed by the Committee of Administrators that India would begin to play in the format only in about a year’s time. I regret to say that the proposed D/N Test cannot be played and all Tests will have to have the conventional structure,” Choudhary wrote in his e-mail to Sutherland. When T20 cricket first started, unimpressed observers rubbished the idea. Nonsense to have such short games, they sneered. “Soon somebody will say ‘tosstoss’ and the match will end right after the toss!” someone said.

Today, T20 cricket is an established product and the financial lifeline of world cricket. The IPL, little over 10 years old, has perfected the formula of the short format and other countries are busy cloning it.

Cricket, fortunately, hasn’t reached the ‘toss- toss’ stage. But in a world which moves rapidly, the search has begun for the next big innovation. Cricket consumers