The newly-elected BCCI president Sourav Ganguly on Friday (October 25) confirmed that India skipper Virat Kohli is open to the idea of playing day-night Tests and it could be a reality in near future.
In order to pull spectators to the stands, Ganguly is advocating for pink ball Test in India since last three years. The BCCI boss had a meeting with captain Kohli and his deputy Rohit Sharma in Mumbai on Thursday (October 24) and it is believed that he spoke to them about playing Test cricket under lights.
"We all are thinking about this. We will do something about this. I am a big believer in Day-Night Tests. Kohli is agreeable to it. I see a lot of reports in newspapers that he is not, but that is not true. The game needs to go forward and that is the way forward. People should finish work and come to watch champions play. I don't know when that will happen, but it will," Ganguly said at his felicitation ceremony by the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) at Eden Gardens.
Asked about the roadmap going ahead, he added: "The team has done well, we might not have won big tournaments. So roadmap will happen with time. Indian cricket has a good structure and it has money."
Ganguly also spoke about the Indian Premier League (IPL) and compared its popularity with the English Premier League in football.
"The IPL is the biggest league in the world, like EPL. It is in no way inferior to EPL in terms of eyeballs and the way it's run.
"My job is to help cricketers at all levels, first-class cricketers. My ambition is to make sure players who don't get to play for India, get the facilities. One of my ambitions is also to make cricket credible and clean.
"I don't know about my time frame, but by the time I leave all those who take over will be able to say he has left a healthy system behind."
Ganguly reiterated the need to have a relook at the Conflict of Interest clause which is making it very difficult for him to get shrewd cricket brains on board.
"I can't change that. We have to request the Supreme Court to do that. It's being done, a status report has been filed and they said it needs to be relooked. Conflict has to be sensible. We need to keep that simple and I will take that forward. I don't want to lose big players."
Talking about his relationship with Kohli as BCCI president and captain, Sourav said it has to be smooth for the betterment of the game.
"It has to be a very good one. People don't see what happens inside," he pointed.
(Inputs from IANS)
