Former Australia skipper Steve Waugh acknowledged the dedication of Indian captain Virat Kohli and his team towards Test cricket as the side accepted the difficult challenge of facing their Aussie counterparts in a D/N Test in Adelaide later this year.
When India previously travelled down under for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy during the 2018-19 season, and eventually won by a 2-1 margin, the BCCI had declined the request from Cricket Australia to go ahead with the traditional pink-ball game in Adelaide.
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However, with Kohli's India reigning supreme at the top of the World Test Championship points table and a new board regime led by board president Sourav Ganguly more acceptant to change, there was no hesitation.
"We will play one day-night Test in each series beginning with the one against Australia (later this year)," Ganguly himself told Sportstar on Sunday (February 16), having ensured the country embraces the new version at home first in November last year against Bangladesh.
"Day night Test is gong to be something relatively new for India. I like the way Virat Kohli is taking that challenge," Waugh told PTI. "If you want to be the best side in the world, you have to win away from home as much as possible."
The Indian team will also have a point to prove considering the talk around absence of Steve Smith and David Warner, two best Aussie batsmen, who were then serving bans for their involvement in the ball-tampering incident.
"You can't take away from India winning last time but Australia did not have the best batsmen," even Waugh said. "Marnus Labuschagne has come out of nowhere, the bowling looks much settled now. India do not have weaknesses too, so it's potentially to be a great series."
The Test championship, of course, brings more context to the rivalry with 120 points on offer in the series towards the back end of the cycle when teams will be pushing hard to try and secure a place in the marquee final at Lord's in June 2021.
"Australia will be peaking at that time. India is peaking in the last 12 months, it's going to be an amazing series," Waugh said. "We talked about having a Test Championship for a decade now and it's exceptionally hard to make it work because the schedules are being planned five, 10 years ahead. I think they have done the best possible job."
(Inputs from PTI)
