Virat Kohli gives his ‘permission’ for D/N Test down under

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Day-night Test is perhaps the hottest subject in cricket today. It has revolutionized cricket and has brought limelight back into the purest format of the game, considering the sell-out of Eden Gardens and the surrounding celebratory atmosphere at Kolkata for the first pink-ball Test in India. A little tease between Aussie Test skipper Tim Paine and Indian skipper Virat Kohli came to an end as Virat Kohli announced that India is ready to play day-night Test anywhere.

The U-turn of the Indian skipper is probably because of the influence of BCCI Prez and iconic Indian captain Sourav Ganguly. Ganguly was the mastermind of organizing a day-night Test at Eden Gardens, and he revealed that Virat had answered affirmatively to a call confirming his agreement to a Pink-ball Test in India, that too in a matter of seconds.

Last November, Tim Paine said to reporters that he has been mulling the possibility of a pink-ball Test against India. “We’ll certainly try and we’ll have to run that by Virat (Kohli). We’ll get an answer from him at some stage I’m sure. That’s where we like to start our summer. 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. We’ll wait and see,” Paine had said.

After the game against Bangladesh where India won comfortably, Kohli said: “I think [after] a good practice game before and enough time to prepare—we’re open to doing anything. You can’t just play it on short notice like I mentioned last time. If there’s time to prepare we’re open to taking up Test cricket in any manner. We will be quite open to it.”

Now Kohli has no problem with a d/n Test anywhere in the world. “We played the day-night Test here, we were pretty happy with how it went. It’s become a very exciting feature of any Test series and we’re open to playing day-night Tests.” Kohli also maintained that his team is ready to play a pink-ball Test in the harshest of grounds. Paine considered a possibility of starting the series with a pink-ball Test at Gabba, and Kohli has finally declared his position. “We’re ready and up for the challenge – whether it’s Gabba, Perth…it doesn’t matter to us, 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.”

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