Sourav Ganguly Contradicts Virat Kohli On Pink Ball

After resisting for nearly four years, Virat Kohli & Co. finally played the pink-ball Test. India and Bangladesh are currently playing the historic Test at the Eden Gardens. While the first day-night Test was played way back in 2015, India did not really show keen interest in playing it. One of the reasons behind it was the unfamiliarity with the conditions.

Virat Kohli and his teammates also had reservations against the pink ball as they were not sure how the ball would behave. The extra shine on the ball did make it behave differently than the traditional red-balls. On the eve of the ongoing Test too, Virat Kohli had made it clear that the visibility of the ball was an issue.

“In the longer format, the ball [anyway] does a lot more. Add not having visibility or the ability to pick the colour makes it even more difficult,” Kohli had said while speaking about the pink ball.

“You need to have the idea of the off-stump. Yesterday, when we practised, we felt the ball could be closer to you but it is actually not that close. It felt like a synthetic ball for the glaze. It is a lot more harder. It feels a little heavy and even the throws took a lot more effort than the red ball to reach the ‘keeper,” he had added.

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Ganguly’s opinion on pink-ball:

Well, BCCI President Sourav Ganguly, who played a huge role in convincing the team to play the day-night Test, has a different opinion on pink balls. Unlike Virat Kohli, the former India captain has claimed that pink ball’s visibility is better than that of the red ball.

“It’s actually easier than the red ball,” Ganguly told reporters on Saturday.

Going by Kohli and Ganguly’s comments, one can say that while the current India captain is still not very excited to play with the pink ball, the latte would continue to support it. It would now be interesting to see whether India agree to play a pink-ball Test when they visit Australia next year.