Lindsay Crocker, the head of of cricket operations at New Zealand Cricket, has said that the day-night Test with India later this year hasn’t been finalised yet.
“The first I heard of it was the news that broke overnight, but [NZC chief executive] David [White] maybe a little closer to it because he is in Dubai at the [ICC] chief executive’s conference,” he told Stuff.co.nz on Friday (April 22). “Alphabetically, India traditionally sit next to New Zealand at these conferences so David would have no doubt talked to his Indian equivalent about the concept, but it would have been relatively fresh news to him as well because it certainly wasn’t a discussion we were having when David left a couple of days ago.
“India are quite definitive, which is quite exciting because they seem quite committed to the idea. We hadn’t considered that would be an option, so there is a bit of water to go under the bridge from our side. It is certainly very exciting for us to potentially be involved in the first Asian day-night [Test].”
Before confirming the Test, New Zealand Cricket will take into consideration the venue, the facilities, the quality of floodlights at the venue.
Earlier, Anurag Thakur, the Board of Control for Cricket in India secretary, had said that India will play one day-night Test against New Zealand later this year. “We have decided that we will play one day-night Test match with pink ball against New Zealand later this year. Before that Duleep Trophy will act as a dress rehearsal for the day-night Test match,” he said. “While we have not zeroed in on the venue, there are lots of factors that need to be taken into account. Things like dew factor, how the spinners bowl with the pink kookaburra on Indian pitches. These things we will get an idea during the Duleep Trophy.”
New Zealand are scheduled to travel to India in October this year to play three Tests and five One-Day Internationals.