Australia keen to host two day-night Tests against India next year

Cricket Australia wants the Indian cricket team to play two day-night Tests when they tour the country next year. India are scheduled to play four Test matches in Australia in a high-profile series during 2020-21 tour. India recently played their maiden day-night Test match against Bangladesh at the iconic Eden Gardens Stadium in Kolkata to a highly-positive reception.

The proposal is being forwarded by a committee led by chairman Earl Eddings. They will soon open talks with BCCI in order to gauge the feasibility of the proposal along with BCCI’s receptiveness towards it.

Speaking to ESPN Cricinfo, Eddings stated:

“We’ll mention that when we’re over there in January talking during the one-day series. As you build that trust and build that relationship you have that chat. Pleasingly they’ve played their first day-night Test and won easily. Now they’ve got through that it might give them the right build-up to it over here. I’ve got no doubt they’ll consider playing one and maybe even more day-night Test matches. But that’s down the track to when we catch up with them in January.”

If India accepts the proposal, the day-night matches will be the first two matches of the series. The venues are likely to be Adelaide and a toss-up between Brisbane and Perth. The Boxing Day Test in Melbourne and the New Year’s Test in Sydney will remain traditional red-ball encounters.

Eddings also confirmed that in the near future, Australia would like to play a five-match series against India, like they do against England during the Ashes.

“Still working through that, it’s a normal tour in that they’re playing four Test matches, we’ve got one against Afghanistan. Ideally we want to be playing five Tests against India, hopefully, in the future we can do that as well.”

It now remains to be seen what the Sourav Ganguly-led BCCI make of CA’s proposal.