India ready to play D-N Test in Oz

Aussie skipper Tim Paine had earlier mocked Kohli, seeking his ‘permission’ to play pink Test

Captain Virat Kohli on Monday asserted that India are ready to play day/night Test in Australia later this year, giving, in his trademark manner, a counter to Tim Paine's cheeky dig at him.

Kohli was asked about it on the eve of the threematch ODI series opener against Australia.

"We're ready and up for the challenge whether it's Gabba, Perth... it doesn't matter to us. It's become a very exciting feature of any Test series and we're open to playing day-night Tests," Kohli said.

India played their maiden day/night Test against Bangladesh last November, winning the match quite comfortable with plenty of time to spare at the Eden Gardens.

"We played the day-night Test here, we were pretty happy with how it went. 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 asserted. Last year, when asked about it, Paine had sarcastically remarked that his Australian team would need to ask Kohli if he was willing to play day/night Test Down Under.

“...Yeah, well...We will have to run that by Virat (Kohli). We will get an answer from him at some stage I’m sure. That’s where we like to start our summer and it has been for a long long time except for last summer,” Paine had said. “We’ll ask Virat and see if we can get his permission to play here and maybe even get a pink-ball Test if he’s in a good mood. So we’ll wait and see.”