Cricket Australia confident of a day-night Test match against India next summer

The chief executive of Cricket Australia (CA) James Sutherland is confident of hosting India for a day-night Test against India during their next summer. The Aussies were the part of the first ever Test match played under lights against New Zealand for which 2015-16 with the pink ball. Sri Lanka is also being expected to agree on the matter with CA trying its best to convince both the cricket boards. However, it remains to be seen if BCCI agrees to play under lights in whites when India will tour down under next year.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has been hesitant to play the Test match with the pink ball under lights as India are yet to be part of a floodlit game in whites. They are trying all the possibilities at the domestic level but the senior team hasn’t played any game. Almost all the Test playing nations apart from Team India have played at least one day-night Test match so far.

James Sutherland feels India would agree

James Sutherland is pretty confident that India would agree to play the floodlit Test match in Australia next year which will embark their home season in 2018. “I would anticipate there’s not going to be too much problem there. As we’ve discussed at ICC level, it’s very much in the hands of the home country to make judgments on what they think is best. Certainly it’s pretty well telegraphed that from our perspective we’d be playing at least one day-night Test match every summer,” he told ABC Radio.

He was also hopeful of attracting bigger crowds for the game against India than Sri Lanka. “Certainly India, we would expect to draw a bigger crowd [than Sri Lanka]. That will be the first four Tests of the summer. It’s not all about that, it’s also about how it fits, there’s considerations like weather in different parts of the country at different times of the year. They’re all the things we need to balance and make a call on over the course of the next few weeks before announcing that final schedule,” he added.