India's change of heart on pink-ball cricket had to do with the comfort of preparation and the familiarity of home conditions, Virat Kohli said on the eve of their maiden day-night Test in Kolkata, against Bangladesh. Kohli said that unfamiliarity with the format and the challenges of sighting the ball were behind India's reluctance in the face of previous proposals to play day-night Test matches. Jumping into the format, especially in overseas Tests, can't be a "sudden thing", Kohli said, reports Cricinfo.
In May last year, the BCCI had turned down Cricket Australia's offer to play a pink-ball Test in Adelaide - a tradition since 2014 - and said they would only begin to play in the format in a year's time. That refusal had come just shy of seven months before the Adelaide Test began on December 6.
A year-and-a-half on, new BCCI president Sourav Ganguly said that Kohli had been readily "agreeable" to the Kolkata Test being turned into a day-night fixture. Kohli said that playing the format was inevitable, but the details around the plan had made the difference on this occasion.
"Obviously we wanted to get a feel of pink-ball cricket. Eventually, it had to happen," Kohli said. "But, you can't bring up those things before a big tour that you're going to and suddenly in the schedule, there's a pink-ball Test, when we haven't even practiced with the pink ball - we haven't played any first-class games with pink ball.
"The thing was to experience the pink-ball Test in our own conditions first, so you get the hang of how the ball behaves, what is the way to sight the ball and so on. Then, eventually, going and playing with the pink ball anywhere in the world. So it can't be a sudden thing. This one, we had been talking about it for a while. As you saw, a few of the guys had been practicing before the series started. So you can't just, two days before you get on a plane, say 'play a pink ball Test' in a week's time. We didn't think it was logical from that point of view. It needed a bit of preparation. And once you get a hang of it, once you're used to playing it, there's no problem in playing at all.
"We just felt it was more of a spontaneous plan, rather than it being planned over a period of time. Which, I think, any change needs to have that much time for it to sink in, settle in. And then we are open to do anything."
