Debasis Sen in Adelaide
Australia once again proved their dominance in the recently concluded Pink-Ball Test in Adelaide by comfortably beating India. In doing so, Pat Cummins and his boys have now levelled the five-match series 1-1, with three more Tests to follow. The victory also saw India slipping to third place in the World Test Championship points table, behind Australia and South Africa.
The commanding win by the hosts was marred by an ugly incident between Travis Head and Mohammed Siraj on Day 2. At the end of the match, Siraj hit back at Head, labelling the Australian batter’s comments as a “lie.” The Indian speedster was booed by the capacity crowd after he gave the Australian batter a heated send-off on the second day of the Test match. It remains to be seen whether the Indian pacer faces any sanction from ICC match referee Ranjan Madugalle.
The Test wasn’t just restricted to the spat between Siraj and Head. There was also a moment of embarrassment for the local authorities when the floodlights went off not once but twice in the space of a few minutes on Day 2. Later, there was a clarification from Cricket Australia stating that there was a brief internal switching issue that was quickly identified and rectified.
What stood out was the crowd attendance on all three days. The cumulative total attendance of 1,24,047 is a record for any India versus Australia Test at the Adelaide Oval, surpassing the previous record of 1,13,009 in 2013-14. The crowds came in numbers, and on the first two days, there was a massive queue in front of the South Gate as the spectators were seen waiting for the gates to open at 12:30pm. Local fans turned up as early as 9am in the morning.
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Talking about my experience of covering a Pink-Ball Test, it dates back to the first-ever D/N Test in India, when the hosts took on Bangladesh, at the Eden Gardens, in November 2019. In that Test, Bangladesh lost by an innings and 44 runs. Virat Kohli scored a brilliant 136 runs while Ishant Sharma picked nine wickets in the match.
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) did experiment with the pink ball Test for the next few years. The last time the Indian players partook in a Day-Night Test was in 2022. While that experiment in India, and elsewhere in other Test-playing nations, has not worked, it has become an annual fixture in Australia with massive turnouts.
As the focus now shifts to Brisbane for the all-important third Test of the Border Gavaskar Trophy, which gets underway at the Gabba from December 14, Rohit Sharma and his boys will take inspiration from the epic win the last time the two teams played against each other at the venue.
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